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BIOGEAPHY 

OP 

VICE PRESIDENT 

OF THE 

-CTHITED STATES. 

WITH AK 

GONTATNIXG SELECTION'S FROM HIS WRITINGS, INCLUDING 
HIS SPEECHF-S IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 
ON THE CLAIMS OF IHE SOLDIERS OF THE REVO- 
LUTION, AND IN lAVOn OF ABOLISHING IM- 
PRISONMENT FOR DEBT WITH 0:HEI1 

VALUABLE DOCUMENTS', AMONG 

WHICH WILL BE FOUND THE 

LATE LETTER OF 

COLONEL TKOS. H. BENTON, 

TO THE 
CONVENTIOX Oi" THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI. 

SECOJSD EDITION. > ' 



COMriLED AND EDITED 

BY WlTiLIAM EMMONS. 



WASHINGTON; 

»BXirTED BT JACOB GIDEON, JB 
1835. 






Kntercd according" to Act of Congress, in the year !8o5, by 
WiLxiATsi Emwojts, iu the Clert's Office of the District Court of 
the Distj'ict of Columbia. 



PREFACE. 

In presenting to the American citizens a Biogra- 
phy of one of our distinguished Democratic States- 
men, I kel that I need not apologize, — as I do it 
with feelings of patriotic ardour, and for the purpose 
of vindicating a character on whom has been lavish- 
ed much personal and public abuse for a long series 
of years, on account of his early opposition to a par- 
ty once recognized as the "Essex Junto,'^ but more 
recently known as the War Party in peace ! and the 
Peace Party in war ! occasionally mantling them- 
selves beneath the imposing shelter of Washington 
and benevolence! And for this devotion to the cause 
of the people, he was proscribed! by the very Senate 
where you, my countrymen, have now placed him 
to preside, as a merited rebuke to such as proclaim- 
ed they were no man's men! As a further proof 
that the American people are capable of self gov- 
ernment, a portion of my fellow-citizens have inform- 
ed such Senators that they arc no longer their men!! 

He has long been denounced as a Magician ! his 
opponents, however, have been taught satisfacto- 
rily^ I trust, that the magic he deals in has been ap- 
proved by YOU, the people ! hence, I cannot, as an 
Independent freeman, but rejoice at the cheering 



lY PREFACE. 

prospects before him, confident as I am, that the 
same power which has sustained and propelled him 
onward, will again cluster around, and through him, 
carry out the principles begun by a Jefferson, and 
thus far perfected by the venerable Jackson, 
whose fame will endure " while the earth bears a 
plant, or the sea rolls its waves.^' No doubt he 
will again be opposed by a phalanx, sustained as 
they have been, from the vaults of a gigantic British 
institution, in the disguise of a United States 
Bank, which. Vampire-like, was fast preying on 
the VITALS of the Republic ! Thanks to an over- 
ruling Providence! A Jackson, and a Benton, 
dared encounter, and stay the further progress of that 
many headed Monster ! seconded, on all occasions, 
by the firm friend to Democracy, Martin Van Bu- 
BEN, and nobly sustained by the American people. 

For one, I do not doubt the native as well as 
adopted freemen of my country, will, at the ap- 
proaching Presidential Election, prove to the 
surrounding nations of the earth, that American ci- 
tizens are superior to any and all combinations that 
have been or may be entered into for the overthrow 
of Democracy. If such an overthrow be accom- 
plished, you then indeed would have a constructive, 
instead of a practical Democratic Republican 
Government. 

Forget not, the Government is your own, and 
your children demand at your hands its transmission 



PREFACE. T 

unimpaired to them as your last best legacy. Re- 
member the Reign of Kings is hastening to decay. 

The Government then of right, belongs to the 
sovereign people, before whom all officers must bow 
— at whose shrine I would ever be a worshipper. 

Behold then, Fellow-citizens, the tree of Liber- 
ty! — perched thereon is the American Eagle with his 
broad and spreading wings, holding in his beak a 
SCROLL, on which is inscribed Van Buren, Democ- 
racy, Union and Liberty. 

With these remarks I submit to my countrymen 
the following compilation. The biographical sketch 
was written by a gentleman intimately acquainted 
with the public and private history of Mr. Van Bu- 
ren, for the Cabinet, a literary publication which 
appeared in 1830. It was afterwards enlarged by 
its author in the summer of 1832. As Mr. Van Bu- 
ren was then in nomination for the office of Vice 
President, special reference was made to that circum- 
stance, and a strong conviction was expressed that he 
would be elected to that high office. 1 have prefer- 
red to retain this part of the memoir, although the 
particular language is no longer precisely applicable 
to the present state of things, because I have no right 
to alter the language of another, and more especially, 
because by the energy and virtue of the people, that 
part of it which looked to the future, has already 
become history. — The selection I have made from 
the speeches and writings of Mr. Van Buren, will 



^ 



^ » PREFACE. 

not only illustrate and verify many of the statements 
in the biography; but will exhibit the sound, demo- 
cratic and statesman-like principles, by which his pub- 
lic conduct has been governed, and which have hith- 
erto commanded the public approbration. The 
speech of Mr. Forsyth, on the nomination of Mr. 
Van Buren as minister to Great Britain, in secret ses- 
sion of the Senate in 1832, the correspondence with 
the PIl^:sIDE^T on the same point, and the late letter 
of Col. Benton, being all connected with the sub- 
ject of this volumcj and highly valuable in them- 
selves, will, I hope, be interesting to my readers. 
And I trust that the cheerino; anticipations and patri- 
otic wishes, which have led me to prepare this com- 
pilation, will be confirmed by the sovereign People 
of these United States in the election of 1S36. 
To the American public, 

WxM. EMMONa 
B^ashitigtony Feb. 22, 1835= 



BIOGRAPHY 

OF 

MARTIN VAN BUREN, 

OF NEW-YOllK. 



Martin Van Buren was born at Kinder- 
hook, in the county of Columbia, and state of New- 
York, on the 5th of December, 1782. He is the 
eldest son of Abraham Van Buren, an upright and 
intelligent man, whose virtuous conduct and amiable 
temper enabled him to pass through a long life, not 
only without an enemy, but without ever being in- 
volved^in contention or controversy. His mother, a 
woman of excellent sense and pleasing manners, was 
twice married, Mr. Van Buren being her second 
husband. Both parents were exclusively of Dutch 
decent; their ancestors being among the most re- 
spectable of those emigrants from Holland, who esta- 
blished themselves, in the earliest period of our 
colonial history, in the ancient settlement of Kin- 
derhook. They died at advanced ages; the father in 
1814, the mother in 1818, but not until they had 
witnessed, and, for a series of years, participated in, 
the prosperity of their son. 



2 BIOGRAPHY OF 

The subject of this memoir displayed, in early 
boyhood, endowments so superior, that his family 
resolved to educate him for the bar. He was accord- ' 
jpgly placed, at the age of fourteen, in the office of 
Francis Sylvester, Esq., then and still a much re- 
spected resident of Kinderhook, and at the time re- 
ferred to, a practitioner of the law. Prior to the 
conclusion of his term of study, he spent about 
twelve months in the office of William P. Van Ness, 
thena distinguished lawyer and politician in the city 
of New-York.* His residence in that city affiDrded 
Mr. Van Buren opportunities of instruction and im- 
provement, superior to any that he had before enjoy- 
ed, and as he was both eager in persuing, and apt in 
acquiring knowledge, he employed these advantages 
with diligence and profit. 

In. November, 1S03, he was licensed as an attorney 
of the Supreme Court, and immediately thereafter 
commenced professional business in his native village, 
in connexion with a half brother, considerably his 
senior. At the next term of the county courts, he 

* This gentleman having afterwards held the office of District 
Judge of the United States for the southern distilct of New-York, 
is some times confounded with William W. Van Ness, for many- 
years a Judge of the Supreme Court of the State — a mistake 
which happens the more readily, from their being both natives of 
Columbia county, and both greatly distinguished by their talents 
and their connexion with political affairs, though they belonged, 
the former to the republican, and the latter to the federal party. 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 3 

was admitted as attorney and councellor, and thus en- 
rolled in the Columbia bar, then numbering among 
its members several of the first men in the state; but 
the field was not fairly spread before him until his 
admission as councellor in the Supreme Court, which 
took place in February, 1807. 

He had always aspired to distinction at the bar; but 
though he had within him not only the desire, but 
the elements of success, he was obliged to force his 
way through an opposition at once powerful and pe- 
culiar. The political dissensions which then agita- 
ted the Union, were carried, in Columbia county, to 
the greatest extremities. The title to a large portion 
of the soil was vested in a few ancient families, the 
founders of which had been endowed, during the 
colonial government, with a species of baronial pre- 
rogative. The members of these families were gen- 
erally federalists, and as they carried with them most 
of the wealthy freeholders, and the great mass of 
the merchants and professional men, they were ena- 
bled to maintain, for many years, an uninterrupted 
ascendency in the county. Their reign was not that 
of toleration or liberality; on the contrary, the fed- 
eralists of Columbia, partly perhaps from the spirited 
and inflexible character of their opponents, were 
among the most decided and thorough going parti- 
zans in the state. Mr. Van Buren was an object, 
with them, of peculiar hostility. He was a plebeian 



4 BIOGRAPHY OF 

and a democrat; he was destitute of fortune and in 
need of patronage; and yet he would neither wor 
ship at the shrine of wealth, nor court the favor of 
the powerful — worse than all — he possessed talents, 
and was not afraid to exert them, in the face, and to 
the prejudice, of his political enemies. It was there- 
fore thought to be a matter of interest if not of duty, 
to keep him in the shade; and nothing was omitted 
that seemed likely to produce such a result. 

Undismayed by persecution, unruffled by the petty 
arts of loquacity and slander, and over leaping the ob- 
stacles by which his progress was obstructed, Mr. Van 
Buren pressed forward in the race before him. *'He 
that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men," says 
Lord Bacon " hath a hard task." That task, and more 
than that Mr. Van Buren undertook, for he strove not 
only for eminence but mastery. There was a noble 
daring in the very attempt to cope with these formida- 
ble adversaries, which would almost have compensa- 
ted for the want of success; but by unremitted atten- 
tion to business, by diligent preparation, and by the ut- 
most exertion of his powers, such an issue was pre- 
vented. His faculties, naturally acute, were not only 
sharpened by these conflicts, but invigorated and 
rapidly enlarged; and it was not long before he was 
enabled to contend on high and equal ground, with 
the ablest of the group. This, after the promotion of 
Judge W. W. Van Ness, was Elisha Williams, the 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 5 

most celebrated jury lawyer in the state, and proba- 
bly in the Union, then in the prime of manhood, and 
nearly at the zenith of his fame. 

In 1809, Mr. Van Buren removed to the city of 
Hudson, which was also the residence of Mr. Wil- 
liams ; and from that time they divided, and for many 
years continued to divide, the professional business 
of the county. They stood also at the head of the 
political parties to which they were respectively at" 
tached. 

The writer has often witnessed, in other places, 
displays of great forensic talent ; but he has never 
seen causes tried with any thing like the zeal, the 
skill, or the effect, which were always exhibited at a 
Columbia circuit, during the period referred to. A 
trial there was an intellectual combat of the highest 
order ; the antagonists were stimulated, not only by 
professional duty and the love of fame, but by a ri- 
valry political and personal, which never suffered in- 
termission or decline. This rivalry to which we 
have alluded, continued for more than ten years ; and 
if time and space permitted, it would be interesting, 
at least to the professional reader, to develope more 
fully than we can now do, the characters of the 
parties and the history of their conflicts. 

In the mean time, Mr. Van Buren had followed 

his distinguished rival to the higher courts, and to 

he tribunal of the last resort. He there encountered 



6 BIOGRAPHY OF 

the first talents in the state, and with such success, 
that on the republicans regaining their ascendency, he 
was appointed, in February, 1815, Attorney-Gener- 
al of the state, in the room of Abraliani Van Vechten, 
then equally eminent for political sagacity and pro- 
fessional reputation, but now reverenced and loved 
as the father of the New York bar. The duties of 
•this office, and the extension of his practice, induced 
^Ir. Van Buren, in the following year, to change 
his residence from Hudson to Albany. From this 
time until his retirement, he was deservedly ranked 
with those distinguished civilians, to whom, in con- 
nexion with her judiciary, the state owes so large a 
portion of her renown. Amongst such competitors, 
it was impossible to acquire, still more to maintain, a 
factitious reputation. Mr. Van Buren's was based 
on materials the most durable. Gifted with a large 
share of good sense, with a quickness of apprehen- 
sion almost intuitive, with a nice discrimination, and 
with great accuracy of judgment, and illustrating 
these qualities by powers of reasoning and oratory 
rarely surpassed, he was peculiarly qualified for the 
discussion of those varied and complicated questions 
of law and of fact, which are so often presented for 
decision in our higher tribunals. It was accordingly 
in the management of important cases in the supe- 
rior courts, that his most successful efibrts as an ad- 
vocate were made. His talents and reputation soon 



MARTIN TAN BUREN. 7 

secured to him an extensive and lucrative business, 
which would doubtless have increased to the highest 
amount known to the American bar, if his labors in 
his profession had not been frequently interrupted, 
and at length finally suspended, by his attention to 
political concerns. 

Whether before a jury, or bar, he particularly 
excelled in the opening of this subject. The facts 
out of which arose the questions for discussion, the 
nature of those questions, and the mode in which he 
intended to treat them, were always stated with great 
clearness and address. In the exposition of his ar- 
gument, he was usually copious and difilisive, pre- 
senting his case in all its lights, and bringing to bear 
upon it every consideration vyhich could tend to elu- 
cidate its merits or to cover its defects. His style 
and manner were judiciously adapted to the character 
of his subject, and of his hearers ; sometimes direct 
and argumentative, and at others discursive and im- 
passioned; but even in the management of the most 
abstruse legal topics, he was able by the perspicuity 
of his statements, the aptness of his illustrations, the 
vivacity and force of his tone and gesture, and the 
felicity of his whole manner, to excite and to retain 
the undivided attention of all classes of his auditors. 

No one was better qualified to speak with ability 
and effect, upon little, or without any preparation; 
but no one could be more careful or laborious in hia 



8 BIOGRAPHY. OP 

preparatory studies. We mention this for the pur- 
pose of reminding the junior members of the bar, 
that if they would emulate and equal the successful 
career we have delineated, they must rely not on 
genius alone, nor on general knowledge or a diversi- 
fied experience, but on the surer aids to be derived 
from a perfect acquaintance with their subject, and a 
careful premeditation of what they are to say. 

The public life and services of Mr. Van Buren, to 
which we shall now direct the attention of our read- 
ers, demand a fuller notice than that bestowed on his 
professional career. It must, however, necessarily 
be brief; for to bring them out, in their just propor- 
tions, would require a volume, and would lead to dis- 
cussions foreign to this place. His first connexion 
with political affairs was in the great contest which 
preceded the civil revolution of IBOl. His father, 
a whig in the revolution, and an anti-federalist of 
1788, was among the earliest supporters of Mr. Jef- 
ferson. The son, then a law student at Kinderhook, 
espoused with great warmth the same principles ; but 
his course was emphatically his own. It was the re- 
sult of a decided conviction, that the conduct and doc- 
trines of the men in power, were not only repugnant 
to the spirit of the constitution, but subversive of the 
rights of the people, and calculated to lead to an aris- 
tocratic government. The strength and integrity of 
these convictions were severely tested. The gentle- 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 9 

man in whose office he was a student was a high toned 
federaHst; so was a near and much loved relative, his 
earliest patron. A majority of the inhabitants, includ- 
ing nearly all the wealthy families, and most if not all 
his youthful associates, belonged to the same party, 
and that party then had the ascendency, not only in his 
own town, but in the county, the state, and the Union. 
Aware of his superior endowments, and anxious to 
save him from what was deemed by many of his 
friends a fatal, if not a criminal heresy, great ex- 
ertions were made to attach him to the dominant 
party. Every motive which could operate on the 
mind of an ardent and ambitious young man, was 
held^out to him but without success. He persisted 
in maintaining the principles he had espoused, and 
he spared no pains to inculcate them upon others, es- 
pecially by animated addresses at the meetings of the 
people. His devotion, thus early, to the popular 
cause, though it exposed him to the implacable hos- 
tility of the federalists, secured for him the confi- 
dence and affections of the democracy of the town, 
and soon made him so conspicuous in his county, 
that in the latter part of 1800 or beginning of 1801, 
when only in his eighteenth or ninete'^nth year, he 
was one of her representatives in a republican con- 
vention composed of delegates from the counties of 
Rensselaer and Columbia, and held for the purpose of 
nominating a candidate for the house of representa- 



10 BIOGRAPHY OF 

lives. On that occasion he assisted the veteran po- 
liticians, with whom he v^^as associated, in preparing 
an address to the electors. During the residue of 
his minority he was in the habit of representing the 
republicans of his town in the county conventions, 
and of taking as active and efficient a part in the po- 
litical contests of the day, as any of his seniors. 

His first appearance as an elector, was in the 
spring of 1804, when, in common with the great mass 
of the party in which he had been bred, he supported 
Morgan Lewis for governor of New York in opposi- 
tion to Aaron Burr. Here again his integrity and 
independence were strikingly exemplified. Mr. 
Van Ness, with whom he had recently been a stu- 
dent, was the intimate friend of Col. Burr; and Mr. 
Van Buren himself, whilst a resident in the city of 
New York, had received many flattering attentions 
from that gentlemen. Several of the leading repub- 
licans of Columbia county, including some of Mr. 
Van Buren^s earliest friends, were among the warm- 
est supporters of Col. Burr. Yet Mr. Van Buren 
took a decided stand against Col. Burr, on the ground 
that he was the candidate of the party opposed to 
Mr. Jefferson, and to the democracy of the state. — 
His course on this occasion subjected him to some 
temporary antipathies; but its wisdom and propriety 
were sanctioned by the judgment of the people, and 
at the present day, will hardly be called in question. 



MART'N VAN rUREN. , J| 

In 1807 the democratic party was again divided 
between Lewis and Tompkins, and Mr. Van Buren 
again acting in unison with the majority, was among 
the most decided supporters of the latter. In 1808, 
he was appointed Surrogate of the county, an office 
which he held until February, 1813, when the fede- 
ral party having acquired the ascendency in that 
branch of the legislature which controlled the ap- 
pointing power, he was promptly removed. 

PVom the moment when, in early youth, he es- 
poused the democratic principle, he never wavered 
in his course. Mr. Jefferson's administration receiv- 
ed his uniform support; though in the ardor of 
youthful patriotism, he sometimes wished for a more 
decided policy towards the invaders of our neutral 
rights. During the whole period of the British en- 
croachments, he was among those who labored to 
awaken. In our councils and people, a spirit of indig- 
nation and resistance. The embargo, and other re- 
trictive measures adopted by congress, met his de- 
cided approbation; and were frequently vindicated 
by him in popular addresses, and on other occasions. 
In the dark days which followed these measures, he 
neither apostatized, nor flinched, nor doubted. His 
support of the government was not merely active, 
but zealous; nor was his the zeal of ordinary men. — 
It absorbed his whole soul; it led to untiring exer- 
tion; it was exhibited on all occasions, and under 



J 2 BIOGKAPHY OF 

all circumstances. Neither the contumely of inflated 
wealth, nor the opposition of invidious talent, nor 
the weekly revilings of a licentious press, nor a suc- 
cession of defeats in his own county, could induce 
him to conceal or to modify his political sentiments, 
or to temporize in his policy or conduct. 

The influence of such principles, accompanied by 
talents like those of Mr. Van Buren, was not to be 
circumscribed within the limits of a single county. 
It accordingly extended in the same proportion with 
his professional reputation; and as early as 1811, we 
find him taking the lead in a meeting held at the 
seat of government, and composed chiefly of the de- 
mocratic members of the legislature. In 1811, he 
took great interest irt the question of the renewal of 
the United States Bank. In connexion with the ve- 
nerable George Clinton, and other leading members 
of the party in his state, he strenuously opposed the 
re-chartering of that institution. After congress 
had decided this question, a powerful association 
was formed, for the purpose of procuring from the 
state legislature a charter for the Bank of America, 
to be established in the city of New^ York, with a 
capital (enormous for a local bank) of iS6, 000,000. — 
As the democracy of the state, with but few excep- 
tions, considered this application a sort of substitute 
for the renewal of the national bank, they took strong 
ground against it. Mr. Van Buren was one of its most 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 13 

prominent. Opponents. The republicans of his coun- 
ty were convened on the subject. He delivered to 
Ihem a powerful speech against the proposed appli- 
cation, which was denounced in a series of resolu- 
tions prepared by him and adopted by the meeting, 
as a most dangerous and anti-republican measure. — 
His sentiments on the main question, and his belief 
that improper means had been resorted to by the 
agents of the bank, conspired to recommend to his 
approbation and support, the prorogation of the legis- 
lature by Governor Tompkins, in April, 1812; and 
he accordingly sustained that energetic measure by 
the active exertion of his influence and talents. At 
this juncture he was, for the first time, put in nomi- 
nation for an elective office — that of state senator 
for the then middle district. A more violent strug- 
gle was hardly ever known in the state ; Mr. Van 
Buren succeeded, but by a majority o[ less than two 
hundred out of twenty thousand votes. 

He took his seat in the senate in November, 1812, 
at the meeting held for the choice of presidential 
electors. The republican members of the legisla- 
ture having, in the preceding summer, nominated 
De Witt Clinton for president, in opposition to Mr. 
Madison, then a candidate for re-election, and that 
nomination having been tendered to, and accepted 
by Mr. Clinton, Mr. Van Buren thought it due to 
consistency and good faith, to support electors friend- 



14: filOGRAPHY OF 

ly to that gentleman. He was also prompted to this 
course by an impression, that the character and mea- 
sures of the existing administration were not suffi- 
ciently decisive and energetic ; and by a sincere and 
confident belief that Mr. Clinton, though supported 
by many opponents of the war, would yet, if elected, 
prosecute that contest with more vigour and success 
than his amiable and enlightened competitor. Be- 
sides — Mr. Van Buren had been bred in the political 
sentiments of George Clinton, and on the death of that 
illustrious patriot, had naturally transferred much of 
his respect for the name, principles and character of 
the uncle, to his distinguished nephew, who, up to 
that period had been generally regarded as a pillar of 
the democratic party. In these views a majority of 
the republicans in each branch of the legislature con- 
curred; and Mr. Clinton accordingly received the 
vote of New York. JNTr. Van Buren, however, 
uniformly declared that he would abide by the de- 
cision of the majority ; and that he would support to 
the end, every measure of the government, by whom- 
soever it might be administered, which was calcula- 
ted to bring the war — a measure which he had advo- 
cated in advance, and constantly defended — to a suc- 
cessful result. In conformity with these principles, 
he took a leading part in the winter of 1813, in the 
nomination of Gov. Tompkins, whose patriotism 
had identified him with the historv of the country. 



MAKTIN VAN BUREN. |5 

and whose re-election seemed essential to the prose- 
cution of the war if not to the existence of the gov- 
ernment. On this occasion he wrote the address to 
the electors of the state, issued by the republican 
members of the legislature — an elaborate and elo- 
quent production, in which the duty of sustaining the 
administration in the prosecution of the war, was 
enforced by every motive that could reach the hearts, 
or call out the energies of the people. The extracts 
from this address which have recently been laid be- 
fore the public, will have enabled them to test the 
justice of this remark. It was widely circulated, and 
produced the desired effect. 

In the election of April, 1813, Mr. Clinton, and 
many of his friends, supported the candidate of the 
opposition; and from this point a separation ensued 
between that distinguished statesman and Mr. Van 
Buren, which, as to all political matters, continued 
ever after. 

The sessions of 1813 and 14, were peculiarly try- 
ing. The federalists then had the control in the 
assembly, and were violent and uniform in their op- 
position to the war and to its supporters. A majo- 
rity of the senators, with Mr. Van Buren and his 
able coadjutors, Nathan Sanford and Erastus Root, at 
their head, were equally inflexible in their support 
of the government. They passed many bills of a 
patriotic character, which were rejected by the other 



16 



BIOGRAPHY or 



branch. This led to several public conferences, in 
which the points in controversy — involving not only 
the particular measures in dispute, but the justice 
and expediency of the w^ar, and the conduct and me- 
rits of the national administration — were debated at 
large, in the presence of the two houses, by commit- 
tees chosen on the part of each, and with all the 
energy and ardor which the spirit of the times was 
calculated to inspire. These conferences, from the 
nature of their subjects, the solemnity with which 
they were conducted, and the crowded and excited 
auditories that attended them, presented opportuni 
ties for the display of popular eloquence, almost ri- 
valling in dignity and interest, the assemblies of 
ancient Greece. In all of them Mr. Van Buren was 
a principal speaker on the part of the senate, and by 
his readiness and dexterity in debate, his powerful 
reasoning, and his patriotic defence of the govern- 
ment and its measures, commanded great applause. 
On one occasion in particular, he delivered a speech 
©f such eloquence and power, that immediately after 
the termination of the debate, a committee was ap- 
pointed by the republicans of Albany — who, in 
great numbers, had attended in the galleries — to pre- 
sent him the thanks of their constituents, and to pro- 
cure a copy of the speech for publication. This re- 
quest, however, could not be complied with, as the 
speech had been delivered without even the usual 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 17 

preparative of short notes; and Mr. Van Buren, 
who was then in feeble health, had neither time nor 
strength to write it out. 

In September, IS14, the legislature was convoked 
by the Executive, to deliberate on the alarming cri- 
sis th^n existing. The republicans had then regain- 
ed their control in both branches, and various mea- 
sures were adopted with the express view of aiding 
the national administration, in the prosecution of the 
war. Of these, in addition to acts making appro* 
priations of money, the most prominet were the 
acts ^'to authorise the raising of troops for the de- 
fence of the state," and to "encourage privateering 
associations." These bills were each supported by 
Mr. Van Buren; but the first and most important — 
which was known among its friends as the "classifi- 
cation," and among its enemies as the ^'conscrip- 
tion" bill, and which very much resembled the clas- 
sification bill subsequently reported to congress by 
Mr. Monroe — was peculiarly his measure, it having 
been matured and introduced by him. They were 
assailed by the opposition, both in and out of the 
legislature, with unwonted violence. In the coun 
oil of revision, Chancellor Kent delivered written 
opinions, denouncing them as inconsistent with the 
spirit of the constitution, and the public good. — 
Those opinions, though overruled by the other mem- 
bers of the council, were published in the newspa- 



18 BIOGRAPHY OF 

pers and extensively circulated ; and from the high 
reputation of their learned and estimable author, 
they were eminently calculated to excite doubts as 
to the validity of the laws, and to impair public con- 
fidence in those who enacted them. 

In this state of things, Col. Young, then speaker 
of the assembly, and the principal champion in that 
house, of the measures thus impugned, undertook 
their defence, and especially that of the Classification 
law, in a series of letters, written with great ability, 
and addressed to the chancellor, under the signature 
of Juris Consultus. They were answered by Am- 
icus Curiae, (supposed to be the chancellor himself,) 
who was replied to by Mr. Van Buren, in four 
numbers under the signature of Amicus Juris Con- 
sultus. In the first of these papers, he took a gene- 
ral view of the several topics connected with the 
controversy; the others were devoted to a minute 
examination of the various objections made by the 
Chancellor, and by Amicus Curiae, for the act en- 
couraging privateering associations. This controve- 
sy, as conducted by all the parties, was one of the 
ablest which grew out of the last war. Mr. Van 
Buren's share of it, which was distinguished by great 
ability and research, soon became known among his 
political friends, and contributed in no small degree, 
to his appointment as Attorney General, which took 
place in the February following. He was soon after 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 10 

-appointed by the legislature, a Regent of the Uni- 
versity. 

In 1816, he was re-elected to the Senate, and re- 
mained in that body until 1820, when his term of 
service expired. From the commencement to the 
close of his legislative career, he was found among 
the supporters of eveiy measure connected with the 
great interests of the state. He was particularly 
distinguished as a leading and most efficient advocate 
of those great plans of public improvement which 
have since conferred, not alone on the state by which 
they have been executed, but on the age in which we 
live, such imperishable honor. 

The next step in Mr. Van Buren's progress, places 
him on higher ground than any he has yet occupied. 
We have seen him one of the most active and con- 
spicuous politicians in his native state; we are now 
to regard him as the acknowledged rival, in influ- 
ence and renown, of the most celebrated of her sons 
—-De Witt Clinton. In March, IS17, that gentle- 
man was nominated by the republican convention as 
a candidate to succeed Gov. Tompkins, who had 
been chosen Vice-president of the United States: — 
Mr. Van Buren was one of the minority in this con- 
vention, though in accordance with the usages and 
feelings appropriate to such occasions, he acquiesced 
in the result. Mr. Clinton was subsequently elected, 
almost without opposition, but whether with, or 



20 BIOGRAPHY OF 

without cause, we stop not to inquire — gave little 
satisfaction to the democracy of the state. A divi- 
sioH of the party soon after took place ; the great 
mass, with Mr. Van Buren in their number, opposed 
his re-election, and from this time until the death of 
Governor Clinton, these distinguished citizens stood 
at the head of the great political parties of New 
York. Mr. Van Buren at the commencement of 
this era was Attorney General of the state, but the 
council of appointment, at whose pleasure the office 
was held, w^as devoted to Mr. Clinton. This, how- 
ever, did not prevent him from pursuing with frank- 
ness and decision, the course which his judgment had 
prescribed ; though he was aware that the loss of 
office would inevitably follow ; and he was accord- 
ingly removed in July, 1819. Opposition to Mr. 
Clinton was the only cause assigned for this measure, 
which was to Mr. Van Buren one of the most for- 
tunate events of his public life. It commended 
him more than ever to the confidence and affections of 
the firm party men, who remembered his uniform 
adherence to the republican cause, and above all. his 
vigorous support of the government, at the most 
gloomy period of the war. It also largely contribut- 
ed to the peculiar result of the election in 1820, 
when the opponents of Governor Clinton, though 
they failed in preventing his re-election, carried both 
branches of the legislature. A restoration to the 



MARTIN VAN BUIIEN. 21 

office of Attorney General was tendered to Mr. Van 
Buren by his political friends, but being declined by 
him, he was appointed in February 1821, a senator 
in the congress of the United States. 

In the interval between that appointment and the 
next congress, a convention was held to amend the 
constitution of the state. Mr. Van Buren, who had 
warmly advocated this measure, especially with a 
view to the extension of the right of suffrage, was 
unexpectedly returned to it, though a resident of Al- 
bany, by the republican electors of Otsego, as a 
member from that county. 

Many venerable and distinguished men, together 
with most of the active talent of the state, were 
found in this convention. It is, therefore, a high 
compliment — though it be only simple truth — to say, 
that in all the deliberations of this enlightened as- 
sembly, Mr. Van Buren, if not first, was certainly 
one of the foremost. His speeches on the various 
questions submitted to the convention, are published 
in the report of its proceedings, and are among the 
ablest in the volume. They are particularly worthy 
of note, for the clear and comprehensive manner in 
which they discuss the great principles of govern- 
ment, and for their soundness, moderation and jus- 
tice. But it is not the mere display of talent or 
wisdom, that illustrates this portion of Mr. Van 
Buren's history. His conduct in the convention is 



22 BIOGBAPIIY OF 

entitled to the other, and we doubt not posterity will 
deem it higher, praise — the praise which belongs to 
independence, magnanimity and virtue. He entered 
it under circumstances most flattering to his pride— 
the acknowledged leader of a triumphant majority ; 
he was compelled before the termination of the ses- 
sion, either to assent to a course of proceeding in re- 
lation to the judiciary establishments, which he 
deemed uncalled for and improper, or to separate 
from some of the oldest and most valued of his 
friends. He chose, without hesitation or misgiving, 
the latter alternative, and was placed, as he foresaw 
would be the consequence, in the ranks of the mi- 
nority. His conduct, on this occasion, was so evi- 
dently the result of principle, that those of his party 
who differed from him in opinion, honored him the 
more for his firmness and integrity — the separation 
it produced, was therefore confined to the questions 
which occasioned it.* 

* The following extract from a speech of Mr. Van Buren upon 
one of the measures above referred to, will not only illustrate 
this part of his public conduct, but give some idea of his manner 
in debate. 

" The matter therefore being clear, tliat the only effect of the 
amendment would be to tiu-n out of office the present incum- 
bents, [the Judges of the Supreme Court,] he submitted to the 
convention whether it would be either just or wise to do so. — 
He submitted it, he said, particularly to that portion of the con- 
vention, who would be held responsible for its doings — and who 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 23 

He tooV his seat in the Senate of the United 
States in December, 1821. In 1827, he was re- 
would in a political point of view, be the chief sufferers by a 
failure of the ratification of their proceedings by the people. — 
He warned them to reflect seriously on this most interesting- 
matter. He directed their attention to the never ending- feuds 
and bitter controversies wWch would inevitably g-row out of a 
loss of the amendments adopted by the convention. He knew 
well, he said, how apt men placed in their situation — heated by 
discussions, and sometimes pressed by indiscreet friends — were 
to suffer their feeling's to be excited, and to lead them into mea- 
sures which their sober judg-ments would condemn. It was 
their duty to rise superior to all such feeling's. He asked them to 
reflect for sr moment, and then answer him, whether, when 
they left home, they had ever heard the least intimation from 
their constituents, that instead of amending' tke constitution upon 
general principles, they were to descend to pulling down ob- 
noxious officers through the medium of the convention ; and he 
asked them whether they were not sensible of the great danger 
of surprising the public at this advanced stage of the session, 
when the greatest uneasiness already prevailed, by a measure so 
unexpected, 'lliere was, he said, no necessity for, or propriety 
in, this measure. They hild already thrown wide open the 
doors of approach to unwortliy incumbents. They had altered 
the impeaching power, from t'.vo-thirds to a bare majority. — 
They had provided also that the chancellor and judges should 
be removable by the vote of two-thirds of one branch, and a bare 
majority of the other. The judicial officer who could not be 
reached in either of those Wvays, ought not to be touched. — 
There were therefore no public reasons for the measure, and if 
not, then why are we to adopt it ? Certainly not from personal 
feeling's. If personal feelings could or ought to influence us 
against the individual who would probably be most affected by 



24 BIOGRAPHY OF 

elected to the same station. To describe i;he share 
taken by him in the proceedings of the Senate, 
would be to copy the journals of that body for the 
seven years during which he was a member. Before 
the end of the first session, he had established, in an 
assembly containing such men as Rufus King and 
William Pinckney, a reputation of the highest grade, 
which Tvas successfully maintained in after years. 

It has often been demonstrated, that the sarcastic 
remark of Mr. Burke, <Uhat lawyers are not at 

the adoption of this amendment, [Judge W. W. Van Ness] Mr. 
Van Buren supposed that he above all others, would be excused 
for indulging them. He could with truth say, that he had 
through his whole life been assailed from that quarter, with 
hostihty, political, professional and personal — hostility which had 
been the most keen, active and unyielding. But sir, said he, am 
1 on that account, to avail myself of my situation as a representa- 
tive of the people, sent here to make a constitution for them and 
their posterity, and to indulge my individual resentments in the 
prostration of my private and political adversary ! He hoped it 
was unnecessary for him to say, that he should forever despise 
himself if he could be capable of such conduct. He also hoped 
that that sentiment was not confined to himself alone, and that 
the convention would not ruin its character and credit, by pro- 
ceeding to such extremities." — [Carter and Stone's Debates of the 
Convention, p. SoS."] 

The cor.duct of Mr. Van Buren on this occasion, and on the 
nomination of Mr. Clay as Secretary of State, furnishes a conclu- 
sive refutation to the charge of "proscription" recently made by 
the latter, in the United States Senate, and is strikingly con- 
trasted with his course on the occasion referred to. 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 25 

home in legislative assemblies," has no application to 
the American bar. Of this, Mr. Van Buren fur- 
nishes a new and signal proof. In the Senate of 
New- York, he showed himself an able and sagacious 
legislator; in the Senate of the United States, his 
sphere of action was not only greatly extended, but 
the subjects of deliberation proportionably difficult 
and complicated; yet here, also, he displayed a reach 
and comprehension of intellect, and a degree of 
practical wisdom and enlightened forecast which en- 
title him to the appellation and the honors of a states- 
man. As a ready and successful debater, he had no 
superior. Several of his speeches, particularly those 
in favor of the bill abolishing imprisonment for debt, 
and in support of the law making provision for the 
officers and soldiers of the revolution, have been 
ranked among the finest specimens of eloquence ever 
heard in the Senate. Those on the Panama mis- 
sion, on the organization of the judiciary, and on the 
right of the Vice-President to control the freedom 
of debate, were conspicuous for luminous discus- 
sion, and for sound views of constitutional policy. — 
Reports of some of them have been published, but 
<nhough the massive trunk of sentiment remains,' 
the ** blossoms of elocution, '^ in each case, and the 
fruits of genius in most of them, "have dropped 
away." * This must be said of every attempt to per- 

* JohnsoQ. 
3 



26 BIOGRAPHY OF 

petuate his speeches, whether at the bar or in the 
Senate. His^ utterance is so rapid, that no short 
hand writer can follow him with accuracy; and he 
has rarely ever submitted to the drudgery of writing 
out a speech. Nor, indeed, is he capable, by any 
after labor, of doing justice to his own efforts: for 
his brilliant passages are so entirely extemporaneous, 
that they can neither be repeated by others nor re- 
called by himself. 

The course pursued by Mr. Van Buren as a sena- 
tor, both in respect to the foreign policy of the na- 
tion, and to our domestic concerns, was in perfect 
harmony with the doctrines he had previously main- 
tained. One of his first efforts was, to revive the dis- 
tinctive principles of the party in which he had been 
bred, and from which, as he supposed, Mr. Monroe's 
administration, especially during its second term, 
had considerably swerved. Although the exertions 
made by him to effect this end, were not very suc- 
cessful, they attracted general attention, and were 
decidedly approved by the democracy of the union. 

He also took a leading part in the presidential elec- 
tion of 182 4, and the canvass which preceded it. 
Believing the election of Mr. Crawford more likely, 
at that period, to bring back the government to the 
Jeffersonian policy, than that of any of his competi- 
tors, he gave to that gentleman his vigorous support. 
His perseverance, under the most adverse circum- 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 27 

stances, in the support of that upright and persecu- 
ted citizen, is well known; as is also the overwhel- 
ming defeat, both in his own state, and in the union 
which terminated the contest. 

In that catastrophe, his enemies, — ignorant or for- 
getful of the recuperative power of talents and in- 
tegrity — vainly imagined, they saw the downfall, if 
not the end, of his influence and success, but before 
another year elapsed, he occupied a possition more 
elevaled than ever. The first step toward that posi- 
tion, was the wise determination to take no part in 
the decision by the House of Representatives — a re- 
solution adopted by the friends of Mr. Crawford, 
with the double motive of retaining their usefulness 
after the contest should be decided, and of preser- 
ving themselves from the charge of coalescing with 
their opponents. After the election, Mr. Van Buren 
advised his friends at home to abstain from all acts 
of hostility towards Mr. Adams; to give him a fair 
trial, and to judge of his administration by his acts. 
His course in the Senate was governed by the same 
principles; and it was not until the great question of 
the Panama mission that he found occasion to depart 
from it. His opposition to that measure; the inte- 
resting considerations connected with it ; and the 
judgment which the people have pronounced on the 
conduct of those who supported and those who op- 
posed it, are well known. It was after taking this 



28 BIOGRAPHY OF 

stand, an act which drew upon him the marked hos- 
tility of Mr. Adams's Cabinet, and the open denuncia- 
tions of their supporters, that he was re-elected to the 
Senate, by the legislature of New- York. His con- 
nexion with the great contest of 1S2S, and his effici- 
ent instrumentality in bringing about that triumph- 
ant result, which, to use his own language, *' while 
it infused fresh vigor into our political system, and 
added new beauties to the republican character, once 
more refuted the odious imputation that Republics 
are ungrateful," need not be rehearsed. 

With the electors of president and vice-president 
for the state of New- York, a governor of the state 
was also to be chosen, to succeed the distinguished 
and lamented Clinton. Yielding to the pressing de- 
mand of the republicans of New-York, Mr. Van 
Buren consented to become a candidate for the of- 
fice, and was subsequently elected. 

This event made it necessary that he should retire 
from the Senate of the United States, and he accord- 
ingly resigned his seat in that body in January, 1829. 
Before we follow him to the chief magistracy of 
his native state, it will be proper to notice two or 
three points connected with his services in ihe Sen- 
ate, to which no reference has yet been made. Du- 
ring the whole period of those services, the nation 
was agitated by discussions on bills for regulating the 
tariff, and for constructing internal improvements. 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 29 

As a great majority of the people of New-York, 
were decidedly in favor of the protective system, 
and of the bills imposing additional duties passed in 
1824 and 1828, Mr Van Buren's votes on these bills 
were governed by their wishes and instructions — 
it being with him a cardinal maxim, that the repre- 
sentative is bound to express the sentiments of his 
constituents, whenever those sentiments can be clearly 
ascertained. But whilst he was always ready to aid 
in the protection of the manufacturing interests, by 
advocating the adoption of all necessary and reason- 
able measures, he was not prepared to build up that 
interest at the expense of others equally important to 
the well-being of the nation. Deeply sensible that 
the union of the states could only be kept up, by the 
constant exercise of that spirit of concession and com- 
promise in which it was formed, he earnestly incul- 
cated upon the representa^ves of the manufacturing 
states, the importance of limiting their demands to 
the lowest practicable point; the mischiefs to be ap- 
prehended, both in a pecuniary and national point 
of view, from extravagant and oppressive duties; and 
the benefits to be derived from a reduction of the 
revenue to an amount barely sufficient to pay the na- 
tional debt, and carry on an economical government. 
The wise and liberal sentiments entertained by him 
in'tliis respect, were made, not unfrequently, the to- 
pics of accusation in his own state. In 1S27, these 



30 BIOGRAPHY OF 

accusations increased to such an extent, that he avail- 
ed himself of the opportunity affored him by a pub- 
lic meeting held in Albany on the subject of the then 
proposed Harrisburgh convention, to lay before that 
meeting, in a speech of considerable length, his gen- 
eral views on the whole subject, as well as an expla- 
nation of the course he persued, whilst a member of 
the senate, on the particular bills which had come 
before that body. This speech, which was after- 
wards published, had not only the effect of satisfy- 
ing the people of New-York in regard to the course 
of the senator who made it, but it had also a ten- 
dency to moderate the high tariff sentiments of some 
of his constituents. The recent history of the na- 
tion, and above all the bill just passed for the re- 
duction of the duties, have fully vindicated the wis- 
dom, foresight and patriotism of Mr. Van Buren's 
course in relation to this most important and difficult 
subject. 

In regard to internal improvements, Mr. Van Bu- 
ren, had always but one opinion, viz: that it was 
not intended by the framers of the constitution to 
confer on Congress the power of constructing them : 
and that the power, if exercised at all, ought to be 
sacredly confined to objects of a strictly national cha- 
racter. With perhaps a single exception, his votes 
in the Senate, were in strict accordance vvith ttiese 
views. The case alluded to, as constituting a possi^ 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 31 

ble exception, is thus stated by himself. **Mr. 
Van Buren is by no means certain, that in this re- 
spect he himself has been altogether without fault. — 
At the very first session after he came into the Senate, 
the knowledge of the perpetual drain that the Cum- 
berland road was destined to prove upon the public 
treasury, unless some means were taken to prevent it, 
and a sincere desire to go at all times, as far as he 
could consistently with the constitution, to aid in the 
improvement, and promote the prosperity, of the 
western country, had induced him, without full exa- 
mination, to vote for a provision, authorizing the col- 
lection of toll on this road. The affair of the Cum- 
berland road, in respect to its reference to the 
constitutional powers of this government, is a matter 
entirely sui generis. It was authorized during the 
administration of Mr. Jefferson, grew out of the dis- 
position of the territory of the United States, and 
had the consent of the states through which it passed. 
He has never heard an explanation of the subject, 
(although it has been a matter of constant reference,) 
that has been satisfactory to his mind. All he can 
say, is that if the question were again presented to 
him he would vote against it; and that his regret 
for having done otherwise, would be greater, had not 
Mr. Monroe, much to his credit, put his veto upon 
the bill; and were it not the only vote, in the course 
of a seven years' service, which the most fastidious 



^2 BIOGRAPHY OF 

critic can torture into an inconsistency with the 
principles which Mr. V. B. professed to maintain, 
and in the justice of which, he is every day more 
and more confirmed.''* 

Mr. Van Buren entered upon the office of Gover- 
nor of New-York, on the first of January, 1S29, and 
administered the government until the 12th of March 
following, when he resigned in consequence of his 
appointment as Secretary of Slate of the United 
States. Of the ability and uprightness with which 
he discharged the duties of the chief magistracy, 
there is high and honorable proof. Resolutions ex- 
pressive of the <* highest respect for his virtues and 
talents," and tendering to him the congratulations of 
the representatives of the people, with <^their earnest 
wish that he might enjoy a full measure of happi- 
ness and prosperity in the new sphere of public duty 
to which he was about to be removeij," were unani- 
mously passed by both branches of the state legislature, 
though a considerable j)Ortion of each house belonged 
to the party opposed to his election. The like sen- 
timents were expressed in term/s still more flattering 
and affectionate, by the republican members, who 
transmitted him a communication on the eve of his 
departure for Washington, in which, after express- 
ing <Uheir attachment to his person, their respect for 

* Note C to Mr. Van Buren's speech, in relation to the rig-lit 
of the Vice-President to call to order, &c. delivered in 1828. 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 33 

his character, and their regret at the separation that 
was about to take pleace," they tendered him their 
acknowledgements, **for the numerous and impor- 
tant services which he had rendered to the state, par- 
ticularly in sustaining those political principles which 
they believed to be most intimately blended with its 
highest and dearest interests.'^ These proceedings, 
in connexion with those had since his rejection by 
the Senate, may be taken as an index of the estimation 
in which he is held by the people of his native state, 
and of the character of their feelings towards him. 

Immediately after his resignation as Governor of 
New-York, he repaired to the post assigned him by 
the President. 

The qualities of his mind, temper and manners, 
were peculiarly adapted to the duties of a cabinet 
minister, and more especially to those of the state 
department. Whilst he occupied this station, he 
showed himself a safe constitutional adviser, by re- 
commending on all occasions, a strict and scrupulous 
adherence to the terms of the constitution — a liberal 
regard to the interests of each portion of the union— 
a sincere deference to the independence and sove- 
reignty of the states, wherever those attributes re- 
mained to them — an honest, vigilant and frugal ad- 
ministration at home — and a watchful and provident 
attention to our concerns with foreign nations. The 
management of those concerns, so far as it devolved 



34 BIOGRAPHY OF 

on him, was precisely what it should have been. — 
His demeanor towards the agents of foreign powers, 
was on all occasions frank, conciliatory, and digni- 
fied ; his despatches contained notiiing rhetorical, 
offensive or imprudent; the affairs to which they 
related were discussed in a plain business-like man- 
ner; our own views and claims were clearly stated, 
and when founded on truth and justice, inflexibly 
maintained; the pretentions of our opponents were 
candidly considered; and in accordance with the 
character and policy of the President, every effort 
was made to conduct our diplomatic arrangements in 
the spirit of sincerity and justice. The success 
which attended his labors as Secretry of State, is too 
well known to need to be repeated. 

Mr. Van Buren held the office of Secretary of 
State, until June, 1831, when he retired from that 
important and honorable trust which he had volunta- 
rily resigned in the preceding April. The reasons 
which induced him to take this step, were of the 
purest and most elevated character. He believed, 
that the best interests of the republic were identified 
with the full and successful development of the 
principles which led to the election of Gen. Jackson; 
he saw that the confidence of the President, though 
indispensable to his usefulness in the cabinet, was 
yet made the ground of open accusation and insidious 
attack; he was aware that envy and ambition in their 



MARTIN VAN BUKEN. 35 

efforts to injure him, were likely to embarrass, if not 
to thwart the measures of the government; and he 
knew that so long as he maintained a position so pro- 
minent and commanding, the patriotic designs of Ihe 
Executive would be counteracted, not only by the 
regular opposition, but by the more dangerous hosti- 
lity of some who pretended to be his friends. Under 
these circumstances, he resolved to abandon the ad 
vantages of that position; and by a voluntary sacri- 
fice of the influence and prospects which belonged to 
it, to relieve the administration from the difiicuhies 
created by enmity towards him. When the mists of 
prejudice which hang over the |)age of recent iiistory, 
shall have been cleared away, this act will stand out 
in the lustre of personal magnanimity and public 
virtue. 

, The leluctant assent of Gen. Jackson to the resig- 
nation of Mr. Van Buren, was accompanied by a 
warm testimonial of ualimited confidence in his abili- 
ties and integrity. A further proof was soon after 
given of this confidence, in the appointment of Mr. 
Van Buren as minister to Great Britain. In making 
this appointment, the President was mainly influ- 
enced by the belief that Mr. Van Buren would be 
more likely than any one he could select, to nego- 
tiate a satisfactory adjustment of the delicate and dan- 
gerous questions concerning blockades, impressments 
and the right of search, which occasioned the late 



3G BIOGRAPHY OP 

war with Great Britain, and which yet remain undis- 
posed of. The President justly thought the amica- 
ble settlement of these questions an object of deep 
interest, not only to the two nations, but to the 
world ; and that it, therefore, demanded the best 
talents of the country. He also supposed that Mr. 
Van Buren from his intimate knowledge of our rela- 
tions with the several powers of Europe, would be 
able to render essential aid to our ministers on that 
continent; and that he might, in various other ways, 
promote the public interests, during his residence at 
London; Mr. Van Buren felt the whole force of 
these considerations, and he was, moreover, very 
willing to withdraw, for the usual period of a foreign 
mission, from the turmoil of party. He therefore 
readily complied with the wishes of the President, 
by accepting the appointment — though most of his 
political and personal friends were exceedingly averse 
to it, on the ground that his absence from the 
country would materially impair his political pros* 
pects at home. This being the principal motive of 
their objections, he did not think them sufficiently 
important to deter him from engaging in a service, 
which promised, if successful, to be not less useful to 
his country than honorable to himself. He landed 
in England in September, 1831, and was soon after 
received at court with distinguished favor. His ap- 
pointment, however, remained to be confirmed by 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 37- 

the senate. It was submitted to that body in De- 
cember following, and after various postponements 
was finally negatived, by the casting vote of the vice- 
president, on the 26th of January, 1832. In conse- 
quence of this event Mr. Van Buren was immediate- 
ly recalled, and has recently landed on his natal soil. 
Of the reasons assigned for his rejection, it cannot, 
in this place, be necesssary to speak, farther than to 
remark, that if any reliance can be placed on repeat- 
ed and spontaneous expressions of the public voice — 
and in matters of this sort the people never err — 
then were those reasons utterly insufficient. The 
popular feeling excited by the conduct of the Senate, 
has been further exemplified in his recent nomination 
for the Vice-Presidency — an event, which, when he 
left the country, he neither looked for nor desired. 
The heterogenous interests which were combined to 
accomplish his defeat in the Senate, are again united 
in opposing his election; but as the question now at 
issue, is to be decided by the yeomanry of the coun- 
try, we have no fears as to the result. 

We have thus presented a rapid sketch of the pro- 
fessional and public life of Martin Van Burjn. — 
It illustrates in a manner the most impressive, one of 
the happiest principles of our excellent frame of go- 
vernment — its tendency to draw out and foster talent 
and integrity, and to secure to them, in spite of eve- 
ry thing by which their progress may be impeded, 



38 



BIOGRAPHY OF 



the honors they deserve. We have seen that he 
owed nothing to birth or ancestry — nothing to pro- 
perty or patronage. And though like others of our 
public men, he was greatly indebted to the press of 
his own party, for occasional vindications of his cha- 
racter and conduct, he was not, like some of them, 
helped along in his career, by a systematic course of 
newspaper panegyric. On the other hand, he en- 
countered from opposing prints, an unusual degree of 
obloquy and reproach. At an early age, they select- 
ed him as a subject of perpetual and virulent 
abuse; and for nearly twenty years, this abuse was 
persisted in, to a degree rarely paralleled, and never 
surpassed, in the history of our politics. The dis- 
])aragement of his abilities, and indeed the denial that 
he possessed any just claim to talents of any sort, was 
one of the most common, and perhaps the most pro- 
voking, of these libels. The slander was refuted by 
the daily exhibition of great parts, and malignity it- 
self was obliged to admit, that he was always found 
adequate to the particular duty with which he had 
been charged; but this acknowledgement was uni- 
formly follow^ed by the prediction, that he had reach- 
ed the "extremest verge" which destiny had as- 
signed him; and that his next step would plunge 
him beyond his depth, not in a ^^sea of glory," but 
in a "rude stream," that should sweep away the 
past, and overwhelm him for the future. The story 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 39 

of his advancement — at once the most regular and 
rapid with which we are acquainted — is the best 
commentary on diatribes of this sort. We have 
seen his sphere of action constantly enlarging — from 
his native village to the county capitol, from that to 
the metropolis of the state, and from the latter to the 
councils of the union — but we have found him equal, 
and more than equal, to every emergency, never 
falling short of his prior reputation, and never disap- 
pointing the hopes of his friendsj on the contrary, 
€ach successive step in his career, whilst it has falsi- 
fied the predictions of his enemies, has furnished 
new proofs of his capacity, and new claims to the re- 
spect and confidence of his countrymen. 

In person, Mr. Van Buren is neither above nor 
below the middle height; his figure is erect and 
graceful — his frame slender and apparently delicate, 
but capable of sustaining severe and long continued 
exertion — the general expression of his features, ani- 
mated and agreeable — his eye quick and piercing— 
his head, (which is now quite bald,) particularly his 
forehead, of unusual size, and admirable formation. 
The engraving by Hatch, which accompanies the 
memoir in the Cabinet, from the fine portrait re- 
cently painted by Inman for the corporation of New 
York, is a spirited and accurate likeness. 

The private character of Mr. Van Buren may be 
commended without reserve. Enmity itself h*^ 



40 BIOGRAPHY OF 

rarely ever ventured to reproach or to suspect it— 
In his intercourse vvith the world, the justice, pro- 
priety, and benevolence of his conduct, render him 
a model for imitation; whilst the ease and frank- 
ness of his manners, and his happy talent for conver- 
sation, make him the ornament of the social circle. 
Blessed with a disposition at once firm, amiable, and 
forbearing; and uniting with a just self-respect, ha- 
bitual self-control; he has been able — amid the per- 
plexities of litigation, the cares of office, and the 
contentions of party — to preserve the serenity of his 
temper, and to blend with a vigilant attention to his 
own character and rights, a constant observance of 
the courtesies of life and a sedulous regard to the 
feelings of others. No man ever numbered among 
his personal friends, a greater proportion of his poli- 
tical opponents. Even in times of the greatest ex- 
citement, those of them who enjoyed his acquaint- 
ance, always accorded him their respect — usually 
their confidence and esteem. 

It is obvious that with such qualities and manners, 
he could hardly fail to secure the affections of his 
political associates. Such has accordingly been the 
case in every stage of his progress; and it is to this, 
combined with his admirable knowledge of men, and 
his practical good sense, that he is indebted for his 
success as a political leader. To this also must be 
ascribed the charge of intrigue and artifice, which 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 4| 

has so often been preferred against him. If by this, 
it be intended, that he possesses in an eminent de- 
gree the talent of harmonizing, concentrating and 
directing the feelings and exertions of those with 
whom he acts — and that he has often exerted this 
talent with sagacity and effect — his friends must 
plead guilty to the charge. It would be as idle to 
deny it in respect to him, as to Hamilton or Jeffer- 
son, to Chatham or to Fox. But if by the charge be 
intended, the pursuit of those objects which are 
held up by our free institutions, as the incentive, 
and the reward of honorable ambition, by trick, du- 
plicity, or cunning — we may indignantly repel it, 
as alike unsupported by evidence and unfounded in 
fact. No man who was ever brought in contact with 
him — who was able to speak to the point, from per- 
sonal knowledge of his conduct — ever ventured to 
give to such an accusation the sanction of his name. 
On the contrary, all such persons will acknowledge 
— they must acknowledge, if they speak the truth-^ 
that his course as a politician, though decided and 
un5'ielding, was always open, liberal and honest.— 
This has been admitted by several of his opponents^ 
under circumstances peculiarly calculated to giv-e 
force and solemnity to their statements. A single 
instance will illustrate this remark. The most vio- 
lent warfare in which he was ever engaged, was that 
with Governor Clinton, and with his leading sup* 



42 BIOGRA.PHY OF 

porters, Chief Justice Spencer and the late William 
W. Van Ness, two of the ablest men New York erer 
produced. Indeed with the latter of these gentle- 
men, he had waged a severe contest from his first 
connexion with political affairs. The character of 
these contests, the consequences that resulted from 
them, and their tendency to excite the most impla- 
cable hostility, are well known to all w^ho are fami- 
liar with the history of New York. They may also 
be guessed at by others, when we inform them that 
in the course of those conflicts, or some of them. 
Governor Clinton was twice driven into retirement 
— Chief Justice Spencer removed from office, and 
for some time kept from public employment — Judge 
Van Ness compelled to retire from the bench, and 
Mr. Van Buren twice removed from office, and for 
years proscribed and pursued with unrelenting se- 
verity. But each of these great men has borne tes- 
timony to the liberality, fairness and honor with 
which he had been treated by Mr. Van Buren, and 
to the general uprightness of his conduct as a man 
and a politician. Judge Vaa Ness did it on his 
death-bed ; Governor Clinton almost in the last mo- 
ments of his life ; and as to Chief Justice Spencer — 
with characteristic frankness, he often did it, even 
in the midst of our most violent callisions. 

On this point, the friends of Mr. Van Buren may 
also triumphantly appeal to the whole American 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 43 

people. Within the last two years he has been ar- 
raigned before them, on the charge of having brought 
about, by a malign and interested agency, that diffe- 
rence between the highest officers of the government, 
and those dissentions in the cabinet, which occupied 
for a time, so large a share of the public attention. 
These subjects have undergone, in the face of this 
nation, a scrutiny, the most ample and unsparing; 
and this too, for the most part, during his absence 
from the country. And yet the industry of his ene- 
mies have detected no single fact on which their ma- 
lice can repose! On the other hand, we have the 
testimony of a witness, who must know, and who. is 
incapable of disguising or extenuating the truth~we 
have the testimony of Andrew Jackson — to the 
falsehood of the charge in all its parts and bearings. 
This is sufficient to put to flight a whole legion of 
inuendoes and suspicions. 

Such is the man who is now before the nation for 
the second office in their gift. We anticipate, with 
pleasure, his elevation to that honorable post, not 
from any personal interest in his success, or in that 
of the candidate with whom he is associated, but be- 
cause we know him to be *^ honest, capable and 
faithful to the constitution;" — because we believe 
that the best interests of the country will be promo- 
ted by his election;. — and above all, because that 
election will furnish a new and most impressive il- 



44 BIOGRAPHY. 

lustration of the great moral and political truth, that 
integrity, though it may somestimes be beaten down 
by unnatural coalitions, will yet ultimately receive, 
at the hands of a free and intelligent community, a 
full and triumphant vindication. The influence of 
such a vindication, will not, in the present case, be 
confined to our own country, nor to the present 
generation. It will attract the notice of other na- 
tions; it will go down to remote posterity. With 
the former, it will redeem us from the reproach in- 
curred by the wrong intended to be redressed; with 
the latter, it will form a page of authentic history, 
from which envious and aspiring men may read the 
salutary lesson — one which from the days of Haman 
to the present hour, they have been slow to learn — 
that when truth and justice are violated to effect the 
ruin of an adversary, the very contrivances adopted 
to accomplish this end, are likely to become the 
means of his advancement; and that it is therefore 
the part, not only of duty, but of interest, to treat 
their opponents with justice and moderation, and 
^*to do unto others as they would have others do 
unto them." 



APPENDIX. 



Extracts from the address of the Bepuhlican mem- 
bers of the legislature, to their constituents, 
March 9, 1813, written by Mr. Van Buren. 
Fellow-Citizens— It is not to the arbitrary man- 
dates of despotic power, that your submission is de- 
manded ; it is not to the seductive wiles and artful 
blandishments of the corrupt minions of aristocracy, 
that your attention is called— but to an e^vpression 
and discussion of the wishes and feelings of your 
representatives. 

You are invited to listen with calmness and im- 
partiality, to the sentiments and opinions of men 
who claim no right superior to yours,— who claim no 
authority to address you save that of custom ; who 
w^Duld scorn to obtain the coincidence of your opinion 
by force or stratagem, and who seek no influence 
with you, except that which arises from conscious 
rectitude, from a community of hopes and of fears, of 
right and of interests. 

In making this appeal, which is sanctioned by 
usage, and the necessity of which is rendered impe- 
rious by the situation of our common country, we 
feel it to be our duty, as it is our wish, to speak to 



46 APPENDIX. 

you in the language, which alone becomes freemen 
to use — the language to which alone it becomes free- 
men to listen — the language of truth and sincerity ; 
to speak to you of things as they are, and as they 
should be, — to speak to you with unrestrained free- 
dom, of your rights and your duties, — and if by so 
doing we shall be so fortunate as to convince you of 
the correctness of the opinions we hold ; to commu- 
nicate to you the anxious solicitude we feel for our 
country and its rights, to turn your attention from 
the minor considerations which have hitherto divid- 
ed, distracted and disgraced, the American people, 
and to direct it exclusively to the contemplation and 
support of your national honor and national interests, 
OUT first and only object will be effected. 

That tempest of passion and of lawless violence 
which has hitherto almost exclusively raged in the 
countries of the old world, which has ravaged the 
fairest'poriions of the earth, and caused her sons, to 
drink deep of the cup of human misery — not satiated 
by the myriads of victims which have been sacrific- 
ed at its shrine, has reached our hitherto peaceful 
shores. After years of forbearance, in despite of 
concessions without number, we had almost said, 
without limitation, that cruel and unrelenting spirit 
of oppression and injustice which has for centuries 
characterized the spirit of the British cabinet, over 
whelmed nation after nation, and caused humanity 



APPENDIX. 47 

to shed tears of blood, has involved us in a war, — 
on the termination of which are staked the present 
honor, and the future welfare of America. 

While ihus engaged in an arduous and interesting 
struggle with the open enemies of our land from 
without, the formation of your government requires 
that you should exercise the elective franchise, — a 
right which in every other country has been destroy- 
ed by the ruthless hand of power, or blasted by the 
unhallowed touch of corruption ; but which, by the 
blessings of a munificent Providence, has as yet been 
preserved to i/ou in its purity. 

The selection of your most important functiona- 
ries is at hand. In a government like ours, where 
all power and sovereignty rests with the people, the 
exercise of this right, and the consequent expression 
of public interest and public feeling, is on ordinary 
occasions, a matter of deep concern, but at a period 
like the present, of vital importance; — to satisfy you 
of that importance, and to advise you in its exercise, 
is the object of this address. 

Fellow Citizens — Your country is at war, and 
Great Britain is her enemy. Indulge us in a brief 
examination of the causes which have led to it ; and 
brief as from the necessary limits of an address it 
must be, — we yet hope it will be found sufficient to 
convince every honest man, of the high justice 

AND INDISPENSIBLE NECESSITT OF THE ATTITUDE, 



48 APPENDIX. 

WHICH OUR GOVERNMENT HAS TAKEN; OF THE SA- 
CRED DUTY OF EVERY REAL AMERICAN TO SUPPORT 
IT IN THAT ATTITUDE, AND OF THE PARRICIDAL 
VIEWS OF THOSE WHO REFUSE TO DO SO. 

[Here follows an eloquent summary of the causes 
which led to the war — of the preliminary efforts, the 
embargo, non-intercourse, &c. to induce the bellige- 
rent nations to do us justice without a resort to that 
alternative — and of the series of aggressions on the 
part of Great Britain, which rendered it, in the lan- 
guage of the address, a measure of '' high justice and 
indispensible necessity.^'] 

By this last act [I he disavowal of the British gov- 
ernment of the arrangement of Mr. Erskine, and the 
formal re-enactment, by that government, of the or- 
ders in council, the doors of conciliation were effec- 
tually closed.] The American people — a people 
rich in resources, possessed of a high sense of national 
honor, the only free people on earth — had resolved 
in the face of an observing world, that those orders 
were a direct attack upon their sovereignty ; that a 
submission to them involved a surrender of their 
independence — and a solemn determination to ad- 
here to them, was officially declared by the ruler of 
the British nation. Thus situated, what was your 
government to do ? Was there room for doubt or 
hesitation as to the hostile views of England? No. 
Lest such doubts might prevent a rupture, to acts of 



APPENDIX. 49 

violent injustice, were continually added acts of the 
most opprobrious insult. While the formal rela- 
tions of amity remained yet unbroken — while peace 
was yet supposed to exist — in cool blood an unpro- 
voked attack is made upon one of your national ships, 
and several American citizens basely and cowardly 
murdered. At the moment your feelings were at 
the highest pitch of irritation in consequence of the 
perfidious disavowal of Erskine's agreement, a mi- 
nister is sent, not to minister to your rights — not to 
extenuate the conduct of his predecessor — but to 
beard your Executive — to add insult to injury; 
and to fling contumely and reproach in the face of 
the Executive of the American nation, in the pre- 
sence of the American people. 

To cap the climax of her iniquity; to fill up the 
measure of our wrongs; she resolved to persist in 
another measure, surpassed by none in flagrant enor- 
mity — a measure, which of itself was adequate cause 
of war — a measure which had excited the liveliest 
solicitude, and received the unremitting attention of 
every administration of our government, from the 
time of Washington to the present day; the wicked, 
the odious and detestablepracticeof impressing Amer- 
ican seamen into her service; of entombing our sons 
within the walls of her ships of war: compelling them 
to waste their lives, and spill their blood in the ser- 
vice of a foreign government — a practice which sub- 
5 



50 APPENDIX. 

jected every American tar, to the violence and petty 
tyranny of a British midshipman, and many of them 
to a life of the most galling servitude — a practice 
which never can be submitted to by a nation profess- 
ing claims to freedom; which never can be acquies- 
ced in by government without rescinding the great 
article of our safety, the reciprocity of obedience and 
protection between the rulers and the ruled. 

Under such accumulated circumstances of insult 
and of injury, we ask again, what was your govern- 
ment to do? We put the question not "to that 
faction which misrepresents the government to the 
people, and the people to the government; traduces 
one-half of the nation to cajole the other — and by 
keeping up distrust and division, wishes to become 
the proud arbiter cf the fortune and fate of America/' 
— not to them, but to every sound head and hoiiest 
heart in the nation it is that we put the question, — 
What was your government to do? Was she base- 
ly and ingloriously to abandon the rights for which 
you and your fathers fought and bled? Was she so 
early to cower to the nation which had sought to stran- 
gle us in our infancy, and which has never ceased to 
retard our approach to manhood? No; we will not 
for a moment doubt, that every man who is in truth and 
fact an American, will say that WAR, AND WAR 
ALONE, was our only refuge from national degra- 
dation^ — our only course to national prosperity. 



APPENDIX. 5£ 

Fellow Citizens — Throughout the whole period of 
the political struggles, which if they have not abso- 
lutely disgraced, have certainly not exalted, our cha- 
racter; no remark was more common — no expecta- 
tion more cheerfully indulged in — than that those 
severe and malevolent contentions would only be 
sustained in time of peace; that when the country 
should be involved in war, every wish, and every 
sentiment would be exclusively American. But 
unfortunately for our country, those reasonable ex- 
pectations have not been realized, notwithstanding 
every one knows, that the power of declaring war, 
and the duty of supporting it, belong to the general 
government; notwithstanding that the constitutional 
remedy for the removal of the men to whom this 
power is thus delegated, has recently been afforded; 
notwithstanding the re-election of the same Presi- 
dent by whom this war was commenced, and a ma- 
jority of representatives, whose estimate of our rights, 
and whose views are similar to those who first de- 
clared it; men, who by the provisions of the consti- 
tution, must retain their respective stations for a 
period of such duration, as precludes a continued op- 
position of their measures without a complete de- 
struction of our national interest — an opposition at 
once unceasing and malignant, is still continued, to 
every measure of the administration. 

Fellow Citizens, these things will not do. They 



52 APPENDIX. 

are intrinsically wrong; your country has engaged 
in a war in the last degree unavoidable; it is not 
waged to the destruction of the rights of others; but 
in defence of our own; it is, therefore, your bounden 
duty to support her. You should lay down the cha- 
racter of partizanSf and become patriots; for, in 
every country, *^ war becomes an occasional duty, 
though it ought never to be made an occupation. — 
Every man should become a soldier in defence of his 
rights; no man ought to continue a soldier for of- 
fending the rights of others. ^' In despite of truths so 
self-evident, of incentives to a vigorous support of 
government so pressing, we yet have to deplore the 
existence of a faction in the bosom of our land, 
whose perseverence and industry are exceeded only 
by their inveteracy; who seek through every avenue 
to mislead your judgment and to inflame your pas- 
sions. 

When your government pursuesi a pacific policy, 
it becomes the object of their scorn and derision; the 
want of energy in your rulers is decried, as a matter 
of alarming consideration; the injuries of your coun- 
try are admitted, an4 the fact is triumphantly alleged 
that* 'the administration cannot be kicked into a 
war." When they are impelled to a forcible vindi- 
cation of our rights, the cry of enmity to peace, of 
a wish to war with England to serve France, is im- 
mediately resounded through the land. When war 



APPENDIX. 53 

is declared, public opinion is sought to be prejudiced 
against tiie measure, as evencing a disposition unne- 
cessarily to shed your blood, and waste your treasures. 
When it is discovered, that that declaration is accom- 
pained with a proposition, a just and equitable pro- 
position, to the enemy, on which hostilities may 
cease and peace be restored, that proposition is de- 
rided as evidence of the most disgraceful pusillanimi- 
ty. No falsehood is considered too glaring, no mis 
representation too flagitious, to impose on your cre- 
dulity, and seduce your affections from your native 
land. 

Lest general allegations might fail to effect their 
unholy purposes, and consummate their dark designs, 
specific charges are resorted to — calumnies which 
have again and again met the detestation of an en- 
lightened public, are periodically brought forward, 
new dressed, and with new authorities to give them 
credence with you. Among the most prominent of 
those charges, is that of enmity to commerce, on the 
part of the republican administrations. Never was 
there a calumny more wicked. Enmity to commerce! 
We ask, and we ask emphatically, were is the evi- 
dence of it? What is the basis on which they rest 
their claim to public confidence? It is that the ad- 
ministration is engaged in a war which they claim to 
be unpopular. What are the causes for which this 
war is waged, and which have hitherto embroiled us 



54 APPENDIX. 

with the nations of Europe? They are the violation 
of our commercial rights, and the impressment of 
our seamen! The administration then, are jeopard- 
ising their interest with the people; they furnish wea- 
pons of offence to their adversaries; they brave all 
dangers, for the maintenance and support of our com- 
mercial rights; and yet they are the enemies of com- 
merce! Can such base sophistry, such contemptible 
nonsense, impose on the credulity, or pervert the un- 
derstanding of a single honest man? 

As auxiliary to this unfounded aspersion, the oft- 
exploded, the ten-thousand-times-refuted tale of 
French influence, is ever and anon brought upon the 
carpet. It would be insulting to your understand- 
ings to detain you by a discussion of this odious and 
insulting insinuation. Was it evidence of French in- 
fluence on the adoption of every measure of commer- 
cial restriction, to place both France and England on 
the same footing? Was it evidence of French influ- 
ence to cause it to be officially notified to the court of 
St. James, on the adoption of each of those measures, 
that in case they rescinded their orders in council, 
the United States would assume a hostile attitude to- 
wards France? Was it evidence of French influence 
to embrace the earliest opportunity to conclude the 
arrangement with Erskine — leaving our affairs with 
France in a hostile attitude? If not, where, then, is 
the evidence to support this impudent censure? Is 



APPENDIX. 55 

it to be found in a similarity of manners, of language, 
or of feeling? When an Englishman visits your 
country, is he not received with the familiarity, and 
cherished with the hospitality of a friend? Is a 
Frenchman ever treated by you otherwise than as a 
stranger? Away, then, with those whining, canting 
professions, of fears and apprehensions of the danger 
of French influence. Intelligence must reject, and 
integrity abhor them. 

But to crown this picture of folly and of mischief, 
they approach you under a garb which at once evin- 
ces their contempt for your understanding, and their 
total want of confidence in your patriotism ; under a 
garb which should receive the most distinct marks of 
your detestation; they are ^'the friends of peace!" 
While our enemies are waging against us a cruel and 
bloody war, they cry < 'Peace." While our western 
wilds are whitening with the bones of our murder- 
ed woman and children — while their blood is yet 
trickling down the walls of their former habitations 
— while the Indian war-hoop and the British drum, 
are in unison saluting the ears, and the British dag- 
ger and the Indian tomahawk suspended over the 
heads of our citizens, — at such a time, when the soul 
of every man who has sensibility to feel his country's 
wrongs, and spirit to defend her rights, should be in 
arms — it is that they cry peace! While the brave 
American tar, the intrepid defender of our rights, 



56 APPENDIX. 

and redeemer of our national character, the present 
boast and future honor of cur land — is impressed by 
force into a service he detests, which compels a bro- 
ther to imbrue his hands in a brother's blood — while 
he is yet "tossing upon the surface of the ocean, and 
mingling his groans with those tempests less savage 
than his persecutors, that waft him to a returnless 
distance from his family and his home," — it is at 
such a period, when there is no peace, when there 
can be no peace, without sacrificing every thing va- 
luable — that our feelings are insulted, the public 
arm paralyzed, and the public ear stunned, by the 
dastardly and hicessant cry of PEACE ! What, 
fellow-citizens, must be the opinion which they en- 
tertain of you, who thus assail you? Can any man 
be so stupid as not to perceive that it is an appeal to 
your fears, to your avarice, and to all the baser pas- 
sions which actuate the human heart? That it is ap- 
proaching you in the manner in which alone those 
puny politicians who buz about you, and thicken the 
political atmosphere, say you are accessible, Mroz/^A 
your fears and your pockets? Can any American 
citizen be so profligate as not to spurn indignantly the 
base libel upon his character? 

Sufier yourselves not to be deceived by the pre- 
tence, that because Great Britain has been forced by 
her subjects to make a qualified repeal of her orders, 
our government ought to abandon her ground. That 



APPENDIX. 57 

ground was taken to resist two great and crying 
grievances, the destruction of our commerce, and 

THE IMPRESSMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. The latter is 

the most important, in proportion as we prefer the 
liberty and lives of our citizens to their property. 
Distrust, therefore, the man who could advise your 
government at any time, and more especially at this 
time, — when your brave sailors are exciting the ad- 
miration, ^and forcing the respect of an astonished 
world, when their deeds of heroic valor make old 
Ocean smile at the humiliation of her ancient tyrant 
— at such a time, we say again, mark the man who 
would countenance government in COMMUTING 
OUR SAILORS' RIGHTS FOR THE SAFETY 
OF OUR MERCHANTS' GOODS. 

Next to the cry for peace, the most potent spell 
which has been resorted to, to alarm your fears and 
pervert your understandings — is the alleged distres- 
ses of the country. Fellow- citizens, it has been our 
object, it is our wish to treat you fairly, to appeal to 
your judgments, not to your passions ; and as we 
hope our address to you hitherto has been marked by 
that character — it is to your consciences then that 
we appeal upon this subject. Is not this clamor most 
unfounded, most ungrateful ? If you doubt that it is 
so, if you hesitate to believe that it originates exclu- 
sively with the ambitious and designing — spend one 



58 APPENDIX. 

moment in comparing your situation with that of the 
major part of the civilized world. 

[Here follows a rapid and graphic sketch of the 
condition of the several European nations ; conclu- 
ding with the following interrogation, — *'Look at 
the whole map of Europe ; contrast your own situa- 
tion with theirs ; and then answer us, is it not impious 
and wicked to repine at our enviable lot ?''] 

Fellow-citizens — should those political witlings, 
who are not only ignorant themselves of the leading 
points of controversy in our disputes with the belli- 
gerents, but who are uniformly assailing you as men 
destitute at once of spirit and of judgment — should 
they point to the wars which agitate and have con- 
vulsed Europe, as arguments against the prosecution 
of that just and necessary one which has been forced 
upon us, we know that you will indignantly repel 
the unfounded suggestion. The wars of Europe are 
waged by monarchs. to gratify their individual ma- 
lice, their individual caprice, and to satiate their law- 
less ambition. Ours is in defence of rights which 
must be defended, or our glory as a nation will be ex- 
tinguished — the sun of our greatness will set forever. 
As well might it have been said during the revolu- 
tion, that war should not be waged, because wars had 
desolated Europe. The same rights you then/ought 
to obtain^ you must now fight to preserve — the con- 



APPENDIX. 59 

test is the same now as it was then — and the feel- 
ings which then agitated the public mind, which on 
the one hand supported, and on the other sought to 
destroy, the liberties of the country, ivill be seen 
and fell in the conduct of the tnen of this day. 

Fellow-citizens — we are compelled to close this 
appeal to you. The limits of an address will not 
permit us to do justice to the various subjects which 
should occupy your attention. We are aware that 
this has been already unreasonably extended j but the 
period has arrived when mere words and idle decla- 
rations must be unavailing. We have, therefore, felt 
it our duty to give you, as far as practicable, a clear 
view of your true situation, of your legitimate duties. 
Unfortunately for u?, when we ought to be an uni- 
ted, we are a divided people. The divisions which 
agitate us are not as to men only, but to principle. — 
You will be called on afe the next election, to choose 
between different candidates, not only for the two 
great offices of state, governor and lieutenant gover- 
nor, but for every other elective office — to make a 
selection which the actual situation of your country 
renders of infinite importance. 

We are divided between the supporters and oppo- 
sers of our government. We have witnessed the 
distressing truth, that it is not in the power of cir- 
cumstances to destroy the virulence of party spirit. 
The opposition offer for your support, men, who, 



60 



APPENDIX. 



whatever their private wishes may be, are devoted to 
the support of a party whose views and whose con- 
duct we have attempted to delineate. In opposition 
to them, we respectfully solicit your support for the 
men \vhose nomination accompanies this addres, one 
of whom [Daniel D. Tompkins] has for six years 
served you in the capacity which we now offer him ; 
the other [John Tayler] has for many years served 
you in the most responsible situations. The notorie- 
ty of their merits supersedes the necessity of our eu- 
logium — their lives are their best encomiums : they 
are the true friends of commerce, their views are, 
and their conduct will be, in unison with the mea- 
sures of the general government ; they are the sin- 
cere friends of an honorable peace, the firm and ener- 
getic opposers of a base surrender of our rights. 

We respectfully solicit for them your undivided 
support. We solemnly conjure every real friend to 
his country, to reflect on the danger of abandoning 
his government at a period so perilous ; to reflect on 
the impropriety of even indirectly aiding the views 
of our enemies by continuing his opposition to go- 
vernment at a period so eventful. 

[Alluding to the' republicans who had advocated 
Mr. Clinton's election to the presidency, the address 
has the following appeal:] We solicit the honest men 
of all parties — to remember that ours is the last re- 
public — that all the inflitence of the crowned heads of 



APPENDIX. Qi 

Europe has been exerted to propagate the doctrine, 
that a government like ours can never stand the rude 
shock of war; to reflect that this is the first occasion 
in which this government has been engaged in a war, 
and that the great and interesting questions, whe- 
ther man is capable of self-government, whether our 
republic must go the way of its predecessors, or 
whether, supported by the hearts and arms of her free 
citizens, she shall deride the revilings, and defeat tht) 
machinations of her citizens, are now io be tried. 

Fellow-citizens — In the result of our elections du 
ring the continuance of this war, these important 
considerations are involved, — the question of who is 

FOR HIS C0U]!^TRY OR AGAINST HIS COUNTRY, mUSt 

now be tried — the eyes of Europe are directed to- 
wards US — the efficacy of your mild and wholesome ' 
form of government is put to the test. To the polls ^ 
then, and by a united and vigorous support of the 
candidates we submit to you, discharge the great 
duty you owe to your country, preserve for your 
posterity the rich inheritance which has been left 
you by your ancestors, — that future ages may tri- 
umphantly point to the course you pursued on this 
interesting occasion, as evidence that time had not as 
yet extinguished that spirit which actuated the he- 
roes of Breedshill and of Yorktown; of those who 
fell at Camden^ and of those who conquered on the 

plains of Saratoga, 
6 



62 



APPENDIX. 



PREAMBLE AND RESOLUTION 

Prepared by Mr. Van BuRENj/br a meeting of the 
Bepuhlican Members of the Legislature of New- 
York^ and other Republicans of that State, held 
at Jilbany on the Wth of x^pril, IS 14, and adop- 
ted by that meeting. 

At this interesting period of our national affairs, 
when our government is combatting with a wily, vin- 
dictive and sanguinary foe; when domestic disaffec- 
tion and foreign partialities present their fronts at eve- 
ry corner; and when the present hopes and future 
prospects of the people of New-York are to be tested 
by the exercise of the elective franchise, — at a period 
of such anxiety and solicitude, this meeting, compo- 
sed of citizens from almost every section of the state, 
take the liberty of publicly expressing their senti- 
ments on the subject. 

That " every difference of opinion is not a differ- 
ence of principle" — that on thei various operations of 
government with which the public welfare is connec- 
ted, an honest difference of opinion may exist — that 
when those differences are discussed and the princi- 
ples of contending parties are supported with candor, 
fairness and moderation — the very discord which is 
thus produced, may, in a government like ours, be con- 
ducive to the public good — we cheerfully admit. 



APPENDrX. ^3 

But when, on the other hand, the opposition 
clearly evince that all their clamors are the result of 
predetermined and immutable hostility — when, as be- 
tween their own government, and the open enemies 
of the land, they dare, as circumstances may require, 
unblushingly justify, excuse or palliate the conduct of 
the latter, and falsify, calumniate and condemn that 
of the former — when too in the means which are used 
to effect such unhallowed purposes, they are alike 
indifferent to the salutary provisions of the constitu- 
tion, to the requisitions of national interest and the 
obvious dictates of national honor; — that at such a 
time it is the duty of every sound patriot to do his 
utmost to arrest their guilty career, and to rescue from 
their aspiring grasp his bleeding country, — no good 
man w^ill deny. 

To prove that such has been the conduct and that 
such are and have been the views of the party in this 
country, which styles \iseU Jederal — that their "his- 
tory is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, 
all having for their object" either the subjection of 
the rights and interests of their country, to her an- 
cient and unceasing foe, or a base prostitution of its 
fair fame for selfish and ambitious purposes, ** let 
facts be submitted to an intelligent and patriotic peo- 
ple/' 

Their opposition for the last 13 years has been 
universal, malignant and unceasing. 



04 APPENDIX. 

Their opposition was equally virulent when our 
country was basking in the sunshine of unparalleled 
prosperity, as it has been, while her political horizon 
has been obscured by the clouds of adversity. 

They opposed the abolition of internal taxes, when 
those taxes were rendered unnecessary by the general 
prosperity of the country. 

They opposed the imposition of the same taxes, 
when the imposition became necessary to the main- 
tenance of our national honor. 

They opposed the reduction of the national debt, 
when the means of its reduction were in the power 
of government. 

They opposed the increase of the national debt, 
when its ^ pi,,,.^ or an . ndonment of every attri- 
bute of a free people had become our only alterna- 
tive. 

They clamored much on account of the aggressions 
an our commerce by the belligerents, and their mer- 
chants presented petition after petition and memorial 
after memorial to Congress, that they should vindicate 
our commercial rights. 

They have uniformly calumniated and opposed 
every measure of the government adopted for their 
vindication or support. 

They opposed all commercial restrictions on the 
ground of their inefficacy, contended that war and war 
alone was the proper course for government to pursue, 



APPENDIX. ^5 

&nd on this subject they triumphantly declared "that 
the administration could not be kicked into a war." 

They opposed the war when it was declared, on 
the ground that it wag impolitic, unjust and unneces^ 
sary. 

They have always claimed to be the friends of or*- 
tier and the constitution, and as such friends of order 
and the constitution, their opposition to government 
in the prosecution of the present just and necessary 
war, has been characterized by acts of violence and 
depravity without a parallel in the history of any 
civilized government. 

To enumerate the various a^ts by which the feel-- 
ings of the American people have been wounded and 
insulted, this occasion will not permit — let the most 
prominent, therefore, be alone considered. While 
the combined power of the enemy and his savage 
a-Uies has been directed against us, and our frontiers 
have been drenched with the blood of unoffending 
-women and children, the undivided powers of tKe 
opposition have been exerted-^ 

To destroy all confidence between the people and 
their government-^ 

To misrepresent the latter and to deceive, distract 
and cajole the former — To deprive the government of 
Hhe two great sinews of war, men and money ; pre- 
senting enlistments by discountenancing and calum* 
^iating boih officers and soldiers — defeating the n.e? 



55 APPENDIX. 

cessary loans by attempting to shake the confidence 
of the people in the stability of their government — 

To render the war odious and unpopular, by the 
most flagrant perversions of the matter in controver- 
sy, and of the pretensions of our government ; by the 
most criminal justification of the conduct of the ene- 
my ; and by the vilest extenuation of all their enor- 
mities — 

To paralyze the arm of government and frighten 
the weak and timid from its support, by exciting in- 
surrection and rebellion in the east ; by openly threat- 
ening a dissolution of the Union, and laboring inces- 
santly to sow the seeds of jealousy and disunion be- 
tween the Northern and Southern States ; and by ex- 
ercising in each state the same unworthy means as 
are practiced by them throughout the Union. 

For while in this state they profess great solici- 
tude for the sufierings of our citizens on the frontiers, 
they have invariably opposed the raising a volunteer 
corps for their defence, unless under the disgraceful 
stipulation that they shall not annoy the enemy. 

While also they seek to hide the deformity of their 
conduct in relation to our army, by professing attach- 
ment to the naval service ; we find them opposing 
with disgusting violence a bill to encourage privateer- 
ing which passed the Senate of this state, but was 
negatived by the Assembly, because it had for its 
object to harrass the enemy. 



APPENDIX. 67 

But we forbear the enumeration of acts evincing 
such deplorable degeneracy in a great portion of the 
American people; acts so well calculated to continue 
the war into which our country has been driven — to 
tarnish our national character — and unless success- 
fully resisted, to drive our government to an injuri- 
ous and disgraceful peace : 

Therefore Resolved, That while we congratulate 
our fellow citizens on the happy revival of the feel- 
ings, sentiments and spirit of the Revolution, which 
is every where manifesting itself; and our republican 
brethren in particular, on the heart-cheering zeal and 
unanimity which pervade their ranks, which promise 
the total overthrow of that anti-American spirit, 
w^hich, disguised under the specious garb oi federal- 
isnif has too long preyed upon the vitals of the nation — 
and which excite a lively hope that the councils of this 
great and powerful state will speedily be wholly res- 
cued from the hands of those who have disgraced them 
— ^We warmly and earnestly conjure our republican 
brethren, by the regard they have for their own rights 
by the love they bear their country ; and by the 
manes of the departed worthies of the revolution, to 
be up and doing, and so to act, that at the termina- 
tion of the contest, each of them may triumphantly ex- 
claim — *< I have fought a good fight — I have finished 
my course — I have kept the faith. " 



68 APPENDIX. 

•Answer of the Senate of New York to the speech 
of the Governor, at the extra session of the legis- 
lature held in September 1814, draught ed by 
Mr. Van Buren. 
To his Excellency, D. D. Tompkins, G.vvernor of New York. 
Sir — The Senate, at the close of their last session^ 
indulged, in common with their fellow citizens, the 
pleasing expectation, that before this period the 
blessings of peace upon just and honorable terms 
would have been restored to their country. They 
have thus far been disappointed ; and although the 
mission to which they looked for its accomplishment 
has not yet terminated, the delay which has taken 
place in the commencement of negociations, and the 
spirit of increased hostility manifested by the enemy 
in the prosecution of the war, combine to forbid any 
confident reliance upon the disposition professed by 
him in the communication which led to that mission. 
If, in the result, it shall appear, that in these pro- 
fessions he was originally insincere; or that, influ- 
enced hy after circumstances, he delayed the nego- 
ciations proposed by himself, until he should have 
exerted against us the additional means of annoyance 
which recent occurrences in Europe had placed at 
his disposal^-the world will not hesitate, in either 
case, to pronounce upon his condijct the sentence oi 
strong and indignant reprobatioii. 



APPENDIX. 69 

The world have already seen, and they cannot 
but have seen with astonishment, that when ambas- 
sadors for peace, invited by himself, had already 
crossed the ocean, he has given a new and peculiar 
character to the contest— a character of violence and 
outrage, not only incompatible with the feelings of 
reconciliation, but in the highest degree disgraceful 
to civilized nations, and repugnant to the established 
rules of legitimate warfare. 

Whether this conduct has proceeded from ancient 
animosities now seeking their gratification, in the in- 
fliction of injuries upon those who once defied and 
foiled his power— whether from a desire of finding 
employment for troops whom it was not thought 
prudent to disband at home— whether from hostility 
to our civil institutions, and the vain hope of sub- 
verting the fair fabric which by the wisdom, the 
virtue, and the valor of our fathers, has been reared 
and secured to us— or from a calculation that by carry- 
ing his arms into the heart of the country, and mark- 
ing his course with desolation and ruin, he could 
make an impression on the government which should 
avail him in the proposed negociations, or on the 
people which should be remembered to his advan- 
tage in any question which should hereafter arise be- 
tween the nations— whatever may have been his 
motives, or whatever his expectations, the Senate 
cannot but exult in common with your excellency 



70 APPENDIX. 

and the country, that thus far '^we have sustained 
the shock with firmness and gathered laurels from 
the strife." 

Although he has succeeded in penetrating to 
the Capitol, his momentary triumph, disgraced as it 
was by the destruction of public edifices and the sub- 
sequent plunder of a defenceless city, has before this 
time been imbittered by the reflection, that by the 
conflagration of those monuments of art which pub- 
lic spirit and munificence had erected, and which 
were consecrated by the name of their illustrious 
founder, he has kindled a flame of patriotism which 
pervades every section of the union, which has al- 
ready lit the way to his servere discomfiture, and 
which threatens his complete annihilation, at every 
assailable point of the union to which his ambition or 
his resentment may lead him. 

The Senate have witnessed with the same admi- 
ration, evinced by your excellency, the brilliant 
achievments of our army and navy during the pre- 
sent campaign — achievments, which, in their imme- 
diate effects, have been so highly and extensively 
beneficial to our frontier citizens — achievements 
which have pierced the gloom, that for a season ob- 
secured our political horizon and dispelled those fear- 
ful forebodings which past disasters had excited — ex- 
ploits which will not suffer in a comparison with the 
most heroic efforts of the veterans of the eld world, 



APPENDIX. 



Tl 



which have fully maintained if not enhanced the 
proud and enviable fame of our gallant seamen — ex- 
ploits which have covered the actors in those bright 
scenes with never fading laurels, and which will, 
until public gratitude ceases to be a public virtue, 
call for the highest testimonials Which a free people 
can yeld to freemen — unceasing reverence for the me- 
mories of those who have died on the field of honor, 
and acts of unceasinggratitude to their heroic survivors. 

The Senate have seen with great satisfaction, the 
prompt and efficacious measures adopted by your ex- 
cellency to avert the dangers which threatened the 
State; and believing as they do, that whatever exe- 
cutive authority may have been exercised^ for which 
no legislative provision existed, has not only been 
intended for ihe promotion of the public sjood, but 
was rendered indispensable by the pressure of exist- 
ing circumstances; they cannot doubt that the mea- 
sures to which your excellency has referred, will be 
found to deserve their approbation and support. 

The Senate cannot forego the opportunity afforded 
them, of uniting with your excellency, in an expres- 
sion of the high satisfaction witii v/hich they have 
witnessed the unanimity and patriotism displayed by 
all classes of the community in the present crisis, 
and the disposition which they have manifested to 
com.bine their efforts for the maintenance of national 
honor and common safety. 



72 



APPENDIX. 



That on questions of general policy, or the fitness 
of individuals for particular stations, we should ever 
be exempted from differences of opinion is not to be 
expected. Divisions like those are inseparable 
from the blessings of our free constitution ; and al- 
though sometimes carried to an excess which all good 
men must deplore, they are, notwithstanding, gene- 
rally productive of much national good. But to sup- 
pose that a people jealous of their rights and proud of 
their national character, would on a question of resist- 
ing the aggressions of an open enemy — aggressions 
which have polluted our soil, and which threaten the 
subversion of those inestimable political institutions 
which have been consecrated to freedom by the blood 
and sufferings of their fathers — that on a question of 
such vital interest, so well calculated to excite all the pa- 
triotism, to arouse all the spirit, and to call into action 
all the energies of the nation, they would waste their 
strength in useless collision with each other — would 
be a reflection upon their discernment and their cha- 
racter, which they can never merit. 

The various other subjects submitted by your ex- 
cellency to the legislature, will receive from the Sen- 
ate that prompt attention to which their importance 
entitles them. 

The inr[Dortant interest which the state of New 
York has in the successful termination of the contro- 
versy in which we are involved, and the high desti- 



APPENDIX. 73 

ny to which her local situation, the extent and variety 
of her resources, and the valor and patriotism of her 
citizens, aided by a just and liberal policy, may ad- 
vance her, have been duly appreciated by your ex- 
cellency. The Senate cheerfully pledge their best 
exertions to realize those great and well founded ex- 
pectations; and relying on the patriotism and good 
sense of the American people, they confidently trust 
that the rights and interests of the nation will be 
maintained, and that at no distant period the mild reign 
of peace will be restored to our bleeding country. 



Resolutions expressive of the sentiments oj the le- 
gislature of New York in relation to the victory 
of the Sth of January, i8 1 5, prepared hy Mr, 
Van Buren, February loth, 1815. 
"Whereas, in all ages and in every clime, even 
among the most uncivilised of mankind, the love of 
country and the love of glory, the spirit of patriot- 
ism and of heroism, have never failed to excite ad- 
miration, to call forth applause, and to be crowned by 
those grateful rewards which are ever dear to the 
brave, the virtuous, and the wise: 

<«And whereas, the duty of cherishing senti- 
ments so intimately connected with the welfare, ho- 
nor and prosperity of nations, devolves in a peculiar 



7 



74: APPEND DC. 

manner upon the rulers of a people whose freedom 
and independence are the bright rewards of the pa- 
triotism and. the valor of their ancestors, and can 
only be preserved by the exercise of the same inesti- 
mable and exalted virtues: 

" Therefore, Eesolved unmihnoiisly , as the sense 
of this legislature, that Major General Andrew 
Jackson, and the gallant officers and soldiers under 
his command, for their noble defence of the city of 
New Orleans, that important military post and grand 
emporium of commerce, especially in t.he ever me- 
morable conflict of the Sth of January last, an event 
surpassing the most heroic and wonderful achiev- 
ments which adorn the annals of mankind* do 
eminently deserve the unanimous applause, and the 
lasting gratitude of their country'. 

Resolved, unanimously, That the thanks of this 
legislature be, and they are hereby presented to 
Major General Jackson, and the oilicers and sol- 
diers under his command^ for that heroic and j;lo- 
rious achievment. 

Resolved, unanimously. That these resolutions 
be signed by the president of the senate and speaker 
of the house of assembly, that his excellency the Go - 
vernor be, and he is hereby requested to transmit a 
copy of the same to Major General Jackson, who is 

• NOTE. — The words in Italic, v/ere stricken out after the 
resolutions were reported to the legislature. 



APPENDIX. 75 

requested to communicate to his brave associates in 
arms, the grateful sense which this legislature enter- 
tain of their signal services, in such manner as he 
may deem consonant with the occasion. 



Extracts from a report submitted to the Senate of 
New York, on the 24th of February/., 1815, bi/ 
Mr. Van Buren, recommending a loan to the 
General Government for the payment of the mi- 
litia. 

" The committee further respectfully suggest that 
the services proposed to be rewarded, have been ren- 
dered by persons who, generally speaking, are in 
immediate want of the sums respectively due to 
them, and to whom further delay would be injurious 
and distressing — that in the f pinion of the committee, 
their claims to the friendly aid of this state, are not 
confined to their wants, but are infinitely enhanced 
by the virtue and patriotism of the objects of that 
aid — that the moneys proposed to be loaned are prin- 
cipally due to the militia of the northern and west- 
ern parts of this state, and such as were ordered 
there from other sections of the state, — to the brave 
men who met and successfully resisted the veterans 
of the enemy on the banks of the Saranac, — to those 
who performed tedious and laborious services at Sac- 



tyg APPENDIX. 

kels Harbor, and at various other posts on the west- 
ern frontier, — and to that distinguished band of volun- 
teers, who under the gallant Porter, stamped an in- 
delible record of American valor on the shores of 
the Niagara. 

''The committee, therefore, recommend the pas- 
sage of the amended bill now reported by them, as a 
measure, which, while it makes a beneficial provi- 
sion for a numerous and highly meritorious portion 
of our fellow-citizens, without detriment to the state, 
will at the same time, in no inconsiderable degree, 
conduce to the general good, by a decisive expres- 
sion of our confidence in the credit of the nation j 
and will moreover furnish additional evidence of that 
devotion to the interests of the union, which it has 
been the ambition of this state to evince, whereby she 
has acquired a rank among her sister states, to which 
her exertions in the late contest richly entitle her, 
and which it should be the pride and glory of her 
sons to maintain.'^ 



Extract from the answer of the Senate to the speech 
of Governor Tompkins in 1816, prepared by 
Mr, Van Buren. 
''While the Senate sympathize with those of their 

fellow-citizens on whom the sufferings and depriva- 



APPENDIX. 77 

tions incident to a state of hostilities have fallen with 
peculiar force, they cannot too strongly express the 
proud satisfaction they derive from the reflection, 
that the war in which the nation has been involved, 
arduous and sanguinary as it has been, was not only 
righteous in its origin, and successful in its prose- 
cution, but that our country has arisen Jrom the 
contest with renovated strength and increased 
glory. 

"Among the advantages which have resulted to 
our country from the late war, your excellency has 
justly referred to the elevation of our national charac- 
ter, and to our increased confidence in the efficacy 
and stability of our political institutions. While the 
former is to the nation wealth, strength, and the 
source of happiness, the latter is the sheet anchor of 
their hopes, and emphatically the palladium of their 
liberties." 



Speech of Mr. Van Buren, in the Senate of the 
United States, Januai^y 2S, 1828, en the hill for 
granting pensions to the surviving officers of the 
revolutionary army. 

Mr. Van Buren said he approached the discus- 
sion of the bill under consideration with a degree 
of solicitude he had seldom experienced. It arose 
from a deep consciousness of the importance and de- 



78 APPENDIX. 

licacy of the subject, and the difficulties which would 
attend a satisfactory determination. He freely con- 
fessed that he did not remember a legislative question 
in which his feelings had been more deeply engaged. 
These feelings, sometimes too sanguine, and always 
ardent, might now deceive him ; but he could not 
suppress the conviction, that, upon the doubtful issue 
of the present question, the character of our country 
was, in no inconsiderable degree, suspended. It 
would, indeed, have afforded him the highest grati- 
fication, could he anticipate with confidence a favor- 
able result. But when he beheld the formidable con- 
centration of talent and numbers arrayed against the 
petitioners and their advocates, he was but too con- 
scious of the difficulties against which they had to 
contend. Undeterred, however, by these circum- 
stances, he would proceed to discharge the duty 
which seemed to be required by his connexion with 
the committee by whom the bill had been reported. 

His brethren of the committee, said Mr. V. B., 
had pronounced a merited eulogium upon the charac- 
ter and services of the petitioners. Considerations 
which arose naturally from the subject, but upon 
which, although far from being exhausted, he would 
not attempt to dwell. Indeed, he was greatly de- 
ceived, if, on this point, there was any diversity of 
opinion. Whatever expressions might escape from 
gentlemen in the warmih of debate, he was sure that 



APPENDIX. 79 

the transcendent merits of the petitioners, after hav- 
ing received the attestation of impartial history, 
were not now to be the subject of examination or of 
doubt. Sir, if, in the mysterious dispensations of an 
all-wise and over-ruling Providence, we, too, are 
doomed to experience the common calamities of na- 
tions, it may become our duty to receive these dis- 
pensations with meekness, and bear them with for- 
titude. But if there be a stain from which he would 
be most desirous of rescuing the American name, it 
would be a stain of ingratitude to the surviving oSli- 
cers of the revolution. If there be a calamity which, 
more than any other, he would pray to have averted, 
it would be the calamity of witnessing, in an Ameri- 
can Senate, a cold insensibility to the services of 
those whose devotion to their country in peace, and 
whose constancy in war, had extorted the applause 
of an admiring world. 

If, sir, gallantry in the field, and devotion to coun- 
try, ever deserved the meed of grateful remembrance, 
the encomiums bestowed by my colleagues upon the 
revolutionary officers will find their approval in 
every patriot bosom. But their merits, great as 
they were, appear to be enhanced by the cause in 
which they were engaged. Revolutions in govern- 
ment had been witnessed before, and they have been 
witnessed since. But if we consider the principles 
involved, the means employed, and the results pro- 



80 APPENDIX. 

duced; may I not be indulged in expressing the convic- 
tion that they dwindle into insignificance with this. 
The Revolution in which they embarked, was not 
only the most important, in civil government, that 
oppression has produced or patriotism accomplished, 
but must, in the nature of things, for ever remain so. 
The materials for another equally important, do not, 
I fear, exist ; and, perhaps, the progressive character 
of man precludes a well-grounded hope that they will 
ever again arise. Why, sir, said he, do I allude to 
these high considerations? Not, I am sure, for the 
purpose of display ; and as little with a view to in- 
dulge in self adulation. It is because the unparalleled 
blessings, which, as a people, we enjoy ; the great 
and successful example that has been given to the 
world ; and the perpetual influence which that ex- 
ample must exert in its future destinies — awaken in 
every mind the most intense anxiet}-, lest the closing 
scenes of that mighty conflict sliould be unworthy of 
its own great character— and that the page of history 
which embalms the virtue and heroic deeds of our 
fathers, may not at the same time record the too ear- 
ly degeneracy of their sons. The petitioners at your 
bar are destined to be our witnesses with posterity. 
It is in their persons that an opportunity is afibrded, 
either to repel, or in some degree, confirm the impu- 
tation cast upon Republics by the enemies of freedom, 
that ingratitude is their inherent and inextinguisha- 



APPENDIX. 81 

ble vice: and it was earnestly to be hoped that our 
decision might be such as would be favorable to them, 
to ourselves, and to the cause of liberty. 

But, sir, said Mr. V. B , instead of pursuing these 
general remarks, allow me to invite your attention 
to the question immediately under consideration. — 
In doing so, my first attempt will be to separate that 
which is not a subject of disputation from that which 
is: for in this, as in other cases, time may be con- 
sumed, and arguments fruitlessly employed, in sup- 
porting positions which have never been questioned, 
or enforcing opinions in which all are agreed. 

First, then, it will be admitted, on all sides, that 
the promise made by the Congress of the Confedera- 
tion of half pay for life to the Revolutionary officers 
serving to the end of the war, was made by compe- 
tent authority: that the condition upon which the 
promise was founded has been fully performed: that 
the obligation thereby created rests upon the present 
Government in its original force: and that if it has 
not been fully, fairly, and justly performed, it ought 
now to be discharged. The critical condition of the 
country at the time the promise was made — the fact 
that this inducement to remain in service had been 
held up to the Army from the commencement of the 
war, by various resolves of Congress — that this alone 
prevented their abandonment of a service, in which 
they were not bond to remain by any of those con- 



82 APPENDIX. 

siderations which operate on the generality of man- 
kind — that to their continuance in the Army, more 
than to any other cause, under the blessings of Pro- 
vidence, the successful termination of the war was, in 
the opinion of Gen. Washington, mainly attributable, 
tnd that the sacrifices which they incurred, in conse- 
quence of their determination to remain, were almost 
unparalleled — are points upon which there can be no 
difference of opinion, and requiring, after the able 
comments of the Senators who had preceded him, no 
additional illustration. 

If this, sir, said Mr. V. B., has been the unques- 
tionable engagement of the Government, if the peti- 
tioners are thus entitled to its fulfilment by the per- 
formance of the sole condition on which it was made 
to depend — the question will be asked, has that en- 
gagement been satisfied ? And if satisfied, how has 
it been done ? 

Those who maintain that the Government had ful- 
filled its engagement, rest their position on the ground 
of the commutation of the five years' full pay, which 
has been given in lieu of the promised half-pay for 
life. Whatever might be the diversity of sentiment 
with respect to the legality or the fairness of that 
commutation — the means by which it was effected — 
and the manner of its execution — and on these points 
he acknowledged there was room for an honest differ- 
ence of opinion; there was one position, he thought 



APPENDIX. 8S 

sufficiently plain to challenge the acquiescence of eve- 
ry reflecting nf\ind. It is, sir, that this commutation 
tendered by the Government as a complete fulfilment 
of its promise, has been any thing but a fair and just 
equivalent. To demonstrate this, a few observations 
only will be necessary. 

The intelligent Chairman of the Committee, who 
reported the bill, whose ability in the exhibition of 
the claims of the petitioners would entitle him to 
more than the humble tribute of respect, which it 
was in his power to render, had submitted to the Sen- 
ate statements and calculations establishing the fol- 
lowing results: 

1. That, according to autlientic tables for the com- 
putation of annuities, the five years' half-pay, ought 
to have been seven, at the time it was given, in order 
to make it a fair equivalent, and that the reduction 
of this just allowance was attributable to the necessi- 
ties of the Government, and not to a disposition to 
elude the claims of the petitioners. 

2. That, owing to the failure of the States to sup- 
ply the funds necessary to the payment of the inter- 
est, and ultimate redemption of the principal, of the 
"commutation certificates;" these commutation cer- 
tificates for five years' full pay, given as an equiva- 
lent for half-pay for life, rapidly depreciated. So 
that, when compelled by necessity to dispose of them, 



g4 APPENDIX. 

they in fact produced to the officers less than one 
year's pay. 

3. That when these commutation certificates were 
funded in 1791, a deduction was made equal to one 
third of their amount, by deferring the interest for 
ten, years, upon one-third of the principal, and allow- 
ing only three per centum on the interest which had 
accrued since 1783. 

That this deduction was made by the Govern- 
ment, on the ground (and could be justified on no 
other,) that these certificates were in the hands of 
speculators, who had availed themselves of the neces- 
sities of the officers, brought upon them by their sti- 
pulated continuance in service, and thus were ena- 
bled to obtain them at a reduced and almost nominal 
price. 

Mr. V. B. said he would refrain from attempting 
to enforce the views, upon this branch of the subject, 
presented by the Senators who had preceded him. 
It would be time enough to do so, should these views 
be ever contested. He candidly acknowledged, 
however, that they did not constitute the material 
arguments upon which he relied, for the purpose of 
showing the gross inadequacy of the commutation 
awarded to the petitioners: and he would therefore 
proceed to state the grounds upon which he predica- 
ted his proposition, with all the brevity and perspi- 
cuity in his power. 



APPENDIX. 85 

The certificates for commutation of half pay, were 
issued under the resolulion of March, 1783, and de- 
livered in November, 1783. They admitted, upon 
their face, that five years' full pay was due to their 
holders, to be paid with interest at the rate of six per 
centum per annum. These certificates were redeem- 
ed by the operation of the funding act in 1791. They 
were, of course, for different amounts, according to 
the respective ranks of the officers. The average pay 
of the officers was ^30 per month, and the amount 
which would have been due to each officer for half 
pay, allowing interest after the same was acknow- 
ledged to be due, would have amounted in 1791, 
when the redemption took place, to ^1,742 40. — 
The average amount of five years' full pay for each 
officer, amounted with interest, in 1791, to ^2,664 00; 
from this amount one-third was deducted in the re- 
demption, as he had before stated. The average 
amount therefore received by each officer in 1791, 
for his five years full pay, assuming that these cer- 
tificates had been retained, would have been iBi,776. 

From this simple statement it results that, in con- 
sequence of the delay in discharging the commuta- 
tion; and the deduction which was forcibly made in 
doing so, the Government paid no more than would 
have been due to the officers for their half pay alone, 
up to the period when the commutation was actually 

made. To that period, therefore, the officers gained 
8 



go APPENDIX. 

nothing by that measure. Since that time years 
have rolled away, during which they would have re- 
ceived the promised half pay, had it not been for the 
commutation. The surh which would have been 
paj^able to the officers since that period, is the sum 
precisely which the officers have lost, and the Gov- 
ernment has gained, by this variation by the Govern- 
ment from its original contract. 

This subject, said Mr. V. B. is simple, founded 
upon data which cannot deceive by their plausibility, 
and is liable to no mistake, except the mere errors of 
calculation. Those he had endeavored to avoid. — 
The average half pay of each of the petitioners from 
the year 1791 to 1828, would have amounted to 
gl8,177 83. This sum, multiplied by 230, the num- 
ber of Revolutionary officers supposed to be yet in 
existence, would amount to ^3,030,710. The effect 
of the commutation upon the Treasury, and upon the 
interests of deceased officers, could not be, said he, 
distinctly stated without a particular knowledge of 
the time of their respective deaths. But from what 
we know upon that subject, there was a moral cer- 
tainty that the gains of the Treasury from that source 
had not been diminished, but on the contrary greatly 
increased. 

It is, then, said he, an ascertained and incontesti- 
ble fact, that in addition to all the injuries sustained 
by depreciation, the officers have lost by the course 



APPENDIX. g7 

of events, and the Government has gained a sum not 
less than ^3,030,710, in consequence of that com- 
mutation which is now set up to bar the claims of 
the petitioners — claims predicated upon a promise of 
the Government, held out to the officers as an induce- 
ment to remain, and constituting the chief reward for 
the most signal services ever performed by men in 
the cause of freedom and their country. 

Upon these facts, said Mr. V. B., a question arises 
for our decision, no less important to the Govern- 
ment than to the petitioners ; because, involving the 
character of the one, and the interests of the other. 
What is it ? Is it confined to the legal rights and 
obligations of the parties ? No, sir, I shall never, 
said he, bring my mind to consider the question of 
strict legal right, when I look at the parties. Who 
are they ? On the one hand, the Government of the 
United States, not liable to be impleaded, and inca- 
pable of being coerced against its will by any power 
superior to its own — rich in resources, and overflow- 
ing with redundance ; on the other a remnant of the 
officers of the revolutionary army, borne down by 
the infirmities incident to age — with one foot in the 
grave, and the other upon the theshold of your door, 
supplicating the fulfilment of that promise which was 
made them in the vigor of their days. If even they 
have legal rights, where is their remedy to enforce 
them They cannot in the nature of things hav§ 



g§ APPENDIX. 

any. But candor constrained him to acknowledge, 
that in strictness, they have not now, whatever they 
may once have had, any rights, except such as are 
founded upon the immutable principles of justice. — 
As early as the year 1785, the Government found it 
necessary to protect itself against dormant and un- 
founded claims, arising from the revolutionary con- 
test, by a statute of limitations. Various acts and 
resolutions were passed upon the subject before the 
year 1793, more or less comprehensive in their terms; 
and in that year an act was passed so comprehensive 
in its provisions, as to embrace the claims of the pe- 
titioners, and barring them, unless presented by the 
1st day of May, 1794. The officers did notpresen 
this claim until 1810, and are therefore precluded 
from urging their vested legal rights. Being thus 
furnished with a general answer to all claims which 
do not address both our consciences and judgments. 
Congress have nevertheless relaxed, from time to 
time, the rigor of their own act, when considering 
claims founded on justice, and not opposed by policy., 
But as none of these suspensions have embraced the 
case of the petitioners, we have it in our power, if 
we can have the heart to present this statute of limi- 
tations to the petitioners, and under its mantle, resist 
the cry for justice, if not for bread. The question, 
then, is not what we are bound to do by lav/, but 
what we should do. What conduct on our part will 



APPENDIX. ^9 

bear the scrutiny and the judgments of impartial 
men, when the opportunity to remedy the conse- 
quences of cur decision shall have passed away ? 

Let us look, for a moment, said Mr. V. B., at the 
arguments advanced by the opponents of the bill 
The meritorious services of the petitioners, the signal 
advantages that have resulted from these services to 
us and to posterity ; the losses sustained by the pe- 
titioners, and the consequent advantages derived by 
the government from the act of commutation, are 
unequivocally admitted. But, it is contended, we 
have made a compromise legally binding on the par- 
ties, and exonerating the government, from further 
liability, that in an evil and unguarded hour, they 
have given us a release, and we stand upon our bond. 
Now the question which he wished to address to the 
conscience, and the judgments of this honorable body, 
was this — not whether this issue was well taken in 
point of law — not whether we might not hope for a safe 
deliverance under it — hut whether the issue ought to 
betaken at all — whether it comports with the honor 
of the Government to plead a /e^cf/ exemption against 
tiie claims of gratitude — whether, in other words, the 
government be bound at all times to insist upon its 
strict legal rights. Has this been the practice of the 
government on all former occasions? Or, is this the 
only question on which this principle should operate? 
Nothing, said Mr. V. B. can be easier than to show 
8* 



90 APPENDIX. 

that the uniform practice of the Government has been 
at war with the principle which is now opposed to 
the claim of the petitioners. Not a sesssion had oc- 
curred since the commencement of this government, 
in which Congress had not relieved the citizens from 
hardships resulting from unforeseen contingencies — 
and foreborne an enforcement of law, when its en- 
forcement would work great and undeserved injury. 
He might, if excusable on an occasion like this, turn 
over the statute book, page by page, and give re- 
peated proofs of this assertion. But it is unnecessary. 
He would content himself with a reference to one or 
at most two measures of the character described. In 
the year 1812, between the months of June and Sep- 
tember, goods to an immense amount were shipped 
from England to the United States, by American 
merchants, in open violation of the acts prohibiting 
their importation. They alleged in justification, ei- 
ther their anticipated repeal of these acts, in conse- 
quence of the measures of one of the belligerents ; or 
their apprehension that in the event of a declaration 
of war by the United States, their property would be 
seized and condemned in the British ports. The de- 
claration, in fact, took place ; but the importers were 
not the less liable to the fines and penalties imposed 
by a violated law, and merchandise to the value of 
i^ore than twenty millions of dollars was forfeited 
to the United States. Upon the arrival of the goods, 



APPENDIX. 9£ 

the owners were permitted to retain and use them, 
upon giving bonds to abide the decision of their Go- 
vernment. Application was made to Congress for 
relief: and although it was well known that immense 
profits were made upon their importation, and not a 
doubt existed of their liability to forfeiture. Congress, 
hy an act which fills but a single page upon that sta- 
tute book, cancelled the bonds and relinquished mer- 
chandise, which, if retained, would have been equal 
in value to one-fourth of the whole expenses of the 
war, and which would doubtless have been retained 
had the Government insisted upon its legal rights, 
and acted on the principle now contended for. 

The system which has been pursued in relation to 
the purchasers of public lands, is not a less memora- 
ble example of a departure from that rigorous policy 
now recommended to our imitation. 

By the act of 10th May, 1800, the minimum price 
of the public lands was fixed at $2 the acre ; one- 
twentieth of the purchase money was required to be 
paid at the time of the purchase, one-fourth in 40 
days ; the balance, wiih iriterest, was payable by in- 
stalments of 2, 3, and 4 )^ears ; and the forfeiture of 
the land was the declared penalty of. non-payment. 

By the act of the 26th March, 1804, no interest 
was to be charged upon instalments for future pur- 
chases, if punctually paid, and this provision, in fa- 
vor of the purchaser, was extended to those whose 



92 APPENDIX. 

instalments should become due before the following 
October. 

Under this liberal system, yielding to the Govern- 
ment but little more than the necessary expenses of 
surveying the landsj supporting the various land of- 
fices, and providing for the holder a secure landed 
title, a debt accumulated prior to the year 1820, from 
the purchasers of the United States, amounting to 
twenty-two millions of dollars. 

Before that time repeated indulgencies had been 
granted, extending the times of payment, preventing 
the forfeitures which would have accrued, and in nu- 
merous instances, allowing a re-entry, or a new pur- 
chase of lands, improved, and forfeited to the Gov- 
ernment upon the terms of the original purchase. No 
less than six acts were passed from the year 1813 
to 1820, to suspend the forfeiture and sale of the 
lands thus purchased. The evil, however, had swel- 
led beyond the reach of palliatives. A debt of 22 
millions of dollars exceeded the ability, blighted the 
prospects, and deadened the energies of the States by 
whom it was due. Had the law been enforced and 
payment inflexibly exacted, nearly the whole of the 
lands thus purchased and improved, would have been 
forfeited to the Union, and many an honest yeoman 
would have been compelled to relinquish to more for- 
tunate strangers those woods and lawns which he 
vainly hoped would be the solace of his declining 



APPENDIX. 93 

years. To prevent this calamity, the Government 
interposed, and by an act of liberality having few pa- 
rallels in history, arrested the forfeitures ; authorized 
the relinquishment of lands for which the purchasers 
were unable to pay; and the application of whatever 
sums had been paid to the payment of so much only 
as they thought proper to retain; cancelled the accu- 
mulated interest; extended the term of credit for that 
portion of the lands retained; and by a subseqnent 
act passed in 1824, consented to receive as ^ full pay- 
ment for these lands, less than two-thirds of the 
amount actually due. Nor was this all: by the act of 
1821, the price of the lands was reduced from two 
dollars to one dollar and twenty-five cents; and he 
who had surrendered lands purchased at the highest 
sum was enabled to re-enter the same lands, if not 
sold at public sale, at the reduced price. Sir, said 
Mr. V. B., by the best estimate that I am able to 
make on referring to the only documents within my 
reach, this donation to the purchasers of public lands 
<:ould not have been less than seven millions and a 
half and probably has not been short of ten millions 
of dollars. But the exact amount is not material to 
the elucidation of the principle from which it flowed; 
and in considering its value, who, that can cast his eyes 
upon those extensive regions where tranquillity has 
succeeded to disquietude, and prosperity to ruin, will 
attempt to estimate it by the scale of dollars and cents? 



94 APPENDIX. 

It appears, then, said Mr. V. B., that it has not 
been the practice of the Government to act the part 
of Shylock with its citizens; and God forbid that it 
should make its debut, on the present occasion, not 
so much in the character of a merciless creditor, as a 
reluctant, though wealthy, debtor ; withholding the 
merited pittance from those to whose noble daring 
and unrivalled fortitude, we are indebted for the pri- 
vilege of sitting in judgment on their claims ; and 
manifesting more sensibility for the purchasers ef our 
lands than for those by whose bravery they were won; 
and, but for whose achievments, these very purcha- 
sers, instead of being the proprietors of their soil, 
and the citizens of free and sovereign States, might 
how be the miserable vassals of some worthless favor- 
ite of arbitrary power. 

If disposed to be less liberal to the Revolutionary 
officers than to other classes of the communli/y iet us 
at least testify our gratitude by relieving their .suaer- 
ings, and returning a portion of those \mmzv.i?. gains 
which have been the glorious fruits of their toil, and 
of their blood. » 

Such, said Mr. V. B., would in his judgment be a 
correct view of the subject, had the Governmeiii: re- 
lieved itself from all further liability by the most 
ample and unexceptionable peformance of its stipu- 
lations. How much stronger, then, will be their 
jappeal to your justice, if it can be shown that you 



APPENDIX. 



9B 



have no right to urge this act of commutation as a 
complete fulfilment of your promise ? The act of 
commutation is impeached by the petitioners — firsf, 
on account of the means by which it was affected; 
and secondly, because the stipulations of that act have 
never been fulfilled. 

The petitioners with reason complained that with- 
out ever having consented to be bound by the acts 
of their brother officers, their personal rights were 
made to depend upon the decision of the lines, and 
not upon their own individual assent. This is ad- 
mitted to have been the fact. Two months were ad- 
lowed to the officers of the lines, under the immedi- 
ate command of Gen. Washington, and six months 
to those of the Southern army, to give their assent 
to the compromise. It does not appear that the lines 
of the Southern army ever gave their assent. In- 
deed it is stated by a distinguished Revolutionary of- 
ficer on this floor, (Gen. S. Smith,) that they never 
did. It does not appear that there ever was a meet- 
ing of the officers of the Northern army, for the j)ur- 
pose of deciding upon the question: and it is affirmed 
that there was none. To assume, then, that the as- 
sent of each individual was given under circumstances 
like these, appears to my mind harsh and unjust. — 
But it is alleged, in extenuation, that the compro- 
mise was made upon the petition of the officers them- 
selves. Let this be admitted: did the application 



96 APPENDIX. 

for a just .equivalent for the promised half pay for 
life, confer on Congress the right to prescribe the 
terms? Will it justify the allowance of less than 
that to which they were entitled? Will not the cir- 
cumstances, under which this application was made, 
present a still stronger appeal to your liberality, if 
not your gratitude ? Look, said Mr. V. B., at the 
acts of these brave and high-minded men, in what- 
ever light you please ; examine their conduct by the 
strictest scrutiny, and you will always find them ex- 
hibiting the purest principles and the most elevated 
patriotism. The half pay establishment for life, was, 
at that time, considered by the ardent advocates for 
liberty, as leading to the formation of an aristocratic 
body, and therefore subversive of the principles of 
the revolution. An intimation like this, in the infan- 
cy of our institutions, however groundless in itself, 
was sufficient to excite alarm. The dangers of the 
past were overlooked in the apprehension for the fu- 
ture; the measure was reprobated, and these merito- 
rious officers became the objects of unfounded jeal- 
ousy. To quiet these unreasonable fears, the petition- 
ers expressed their wilHngness to waive the literal 
iulfilment of the promise which had been given: to 
remove the cause which could have a tendency to de- 
prive them of the confidence of their fellow-citizens: 
to surrender the boon they had so dearly purchased; 
and, in addition to all that they had done, and to all 



APPENDIX. 97 

that they had suffered, to offer up their future pros- 
pects upon the altar of their country. And could 
any thing be more preposterous than to attempt to 
found upon an act, originating in motives like these, 
the right to prescribe the terms of commutation ? — 
But it is alleged that the officer received the com- 
mutation certificates, and, by doing so, must be pre- 
sumed to have assented to their being considered a 
full satisfaction of their demands. This inference 
w^as, in his opinion, removed by the peculiar circum- 
stances under which the certificates were given. — 
These circumstances, said Mr. V. B. are not unwor- 
thy of the deliberate attention of the Senate. Pre- 
vious to October, 1783, and subsequent to the time 
when the signature of the preliminary articles of 
peace was known to the army, frequent applications 
had been made in their behalf, to Congress, for an 
adjustment of accounts, and payment of the large ar- 
rearages which were due. These applications were 
fruitless. The failure of the states to comply with 
the requisitions of Congress, deprived that body of the 
meansofdischargingtheir engagements: and with a full 
sense of the services and privations of the army, and 
of the injustice they were about to commit, Congress 
were on the point of disbanding them, unpaid and 
unrequited, and sending them pennyless and almost 
naked to their homes. The effect of this anticipated 
measure upon minds sensibly alive to indignity and 
9 



9§ APPENDIX. 

injury may be easily imagined: — At the moment 
when passion might have triumphed over reason, the 
army was addressed by an anonymous writer, on the 
subject of their wrongs, with a degree of eloquence 
calculated to redeem, if any thing could redeem, the 
vicious tendency of his principles. He admonished 
them of the futility of their complaints, and urged 
them, by every motive that could be addressed to 
their hopes and to their fears, to change the suppli- 
catory style of a memorial to language more becom- 
ing those who had the means of redress within their 
hands. At that perilous moment, on the events of 
which were suspended the honor of the army and the 
future welfare of the country, their commander-in- 
chief appeared amongst them. He conjured them to 
give one more distinguished proof of unexampled 
patriotism, patience and virtue : to rise superior to 
the most complicated sufferings, and by the dignity 
of their conduct, give posterity occasion to say, when 
speaking of their glorious example — '' Had this day 
been wanting, the world had never seen the last 
stage of perfection, which human nature is capable of 
attaining." 

They listened to the voice of their beloved com- 
mander, followed his advice, surrendered their arms 
. — and sunk, pennyless, into the ranks of private life. 
In the succeeding month, the certificates of commu- 
tation were tendered, by the pay-master general, 



APPENDIX. 99 

-who requested only an acknowledgment of their re- 
ceipt, while in relation to the final settlement certi- 
ficates for their pay, he required a full discharge of 
their demands. The certificates thus tendered, were 
accepted and in almost every case, immediately sold, 
for the purpose of satisfying the most urgent necessi- 
ties of nature. He asked the Senate whether it would 
comport with the dignity and honor of a great and 
magnanimous people to avail themselves of an accep 
tance extorted by circumstances like these ; and to 
•urge it as sufficient to bar the claims of justice, and 
divest their protectors in the hour of danger, of their 
stipulated reward ? 

But it has been said, that this commutation excited 
no dissatisfaction at the time ; that the complaints up- 
on the subject, are of recent date, and now, for the 
first time, thought of as a plausible support to an un- 
founded claim. The Senator from S. C. [Mr. Smith,] 
who has been impelled, by a sense of duty, to assume 
the unpleasant task of zealously opposing the bill up- 
on your table, has enquired with much apparent tri- 
umph, whether a single individual could be pointed 
out who had refused the commutation ? He assured 
the worthy Senator that he had adopted an erroneous 
impression. When tendered, it was received with uni- 
versal discontent, and by the junior officers, who were 
most likely to be injured, with decided reprobation. 
Had an opportunity for inquiry been allowed, he ha4 



100 APPENDIX. 

no doubt of being able to designate many who had re^ 
fused. At the moment he could refer the Senator to 
Major Gadsden of his own State, whose petition on 
the subject has been presented to the Senate ; and if 
respect for the feelings of an honorable member be- 
fore him, did not render it improper to drag the name 
of his venerable father into the debate, he could name 
another veteran soldier of the Revolution,* the con- 
fident of Washington and the companion of Lafayette, 
who had served his country bravely and efficiently 
throughout the war, and who refused to receive the 
commutation, because violating, in his opinion, the 
leading principles of the Revolution, by subjecting 
his property to the decision of men whom he had 
never authorised to act in his name or stead. But, 
sir, said, Mr. V. B., what effect did the supposed 
injustice of his country have on this veteran soldier ? 
Did it in the least damp his ardor in her cause ? By 
no means. He belonged to a different school, and 
he gave the most palpable proof of the enduring qual- 
ity of the principle of that school during the late war. 
On learning the approach of danger he repaired to 
this city. On the disastrous day of Bladenshurgh^ 
he was found, at the advanced age of seventy, on 
horseback in the field, stimulating to exertions, by 
his example and exhortation. When the danger 
pressed the hardest he waited on the military com- 
* Col. McLane, of Delaware, 



APPENDIX. 101 

mander of the day, and solicited the responsibility 
for the safety of the City, by being entrusted with the 
possession of this capitol, with a reasonable force for 
its defence. Denied in his application, mortified and 
humiliated by the results of the day, he found his 
way back to his home and the home of his family, 
where he still lives, blessed with the esteem of his 
friends, and the respect of all who know him. 

But assuming, said Mr. V. B. that the act of com- 
mutationwas just, in its inception, was it just In its 
execution ? On this point, he thought there was no 
room for contrariety of opinion. An essential differ- 
ence, he observed, existed between the claims for 
pay and subsistence of the army, and those arising 
from the stipulation of half-pay for life. The former 
being payable during the war, when it was known 
that the finances were embarrassed, were properly 
subject to the depreciation of that period. But the 
])romised half-pay for life was expected to survive the 
period of embarrassment, and therefore to be payable 
in the sound currency of the country. Some of the 
reasons which inclined the officers to accept a com- 
mutation have already been noticed. The necessity 
of obtaining pecuniary means to enable them to cm- 
bark in other pursuits, formed a no less prevalent in- 
ducement. To effect this object, it was obviously 
necessary that the equivalent to be received should 
be promptly paid or adequately secured. The act of 
9* 



102 APPENDIX. 

commutation did neither. It is surely not enough to 
say that the resolution of Congress prescribed that 
the commutation of five years full pay should be paid 
in securities, unless it can be shown that paper, abso- 
lutely worthless, was the security intended. Can it 
for a moment be supposed^ that Congress meant to 
deceive their brave defenders, by holding out a "pro- 
mise to the ear/' only <*to break it to their hopes ?" 
No, sir, they meant what they expressed, that the 
securitiesshould.be real, and not nominal ; their re 
peated and earnest requisitions upon the States prove 
their intention ; and nothing but the inherent weak- 
ness of the government, and the failure of the States 
to comply with the requisitions of Congress — an ex- 
cuse fortunately not in our power to plead — prevent- 
ed that venerated body from redeeming their engage- 
ments. But though the depreciation which followed 
was not attributable to Congress, its effects upon the 
officers was not the less fatal. Necessity, that waits 
not for times or seasons, compelled too many to car- 
ry their certificates into market, and the amount which 
they produced served but to realize the destruction 
of all their hopes. The few who retained them until 
1791, experienced a loss not less severe than unex- 
pected. It has already been stated that, by the ope- 
rations of the funding system, one-third of the amount 
which the commutation certificates declared to be due 
was deducted by the government. The reason al- 



APPENDIX. 103 

leged for a measure apparently so destructive of pub- 
lic confidence and individual rights, was the well 
known fact, that by far the greater part were held 
by speculators who had purchased them at an incon- 
siderable price. Mr. Madison, it is true, endeavor- 
ed to exempt the certificates in the hands of the offi- 
cers from this deduction; but having failed in his at- 
tempt, the least necessitious of the officers were doom- 
ed to experience a diminution of their already insuf- 
ficient commutation. 

This act of commutation, therefore, is clearl}- lia- 
ble to the objection: 

1st. Of not being a just equivalent for the promis- 
ed half-pay for life. 

2dly. Of having been effected under circumstances, 
and by the operation of motives, which deprive it of 
all obligatory force, and entitle the officers to liberal- 
ity instead of rigour. 

3dly. Of partial and defective execution. 

If, said Mr. V. B., no other obstacle were inter- 
posed to the claims of the petitioners than those to 
which he had alluded, fortified as they are, by facts 
not susceptible of misconstruction, and resting upon 
the plain and immutable principles of justice, no doubt 
could be entertained of your favorable decision. But 
he was apprehensive that other considerations would 
have their influence: that the claims of the petition- 
ers would be clouded by dangers in prospective; and. 



104 APPENDIX. 

that the fear of establishing a precedent by which the 
door of your Treasury would be unlocked lo a crowd 
of applicants pleading their poverty, and urging their 
misfortunes, may induce you, in this case, to resist 
the strongest impulses of your hearts, if not the dic- 
tates of your judgments. Among the different grounds 
upon which this apprehension is founded, a leading 
one, he said, is, *'That the bill did not embrace the 
cases of private soilders, who might also have sus- 
tained injustice, and whose services were not less 
meritorious than those of the officers themselves." 

Before I proceed, said Mr. V. B. to consider this ob- 
jection, allow me to call your attention to one or two 
incidental remarks. A variety of persons, officers of 
the Army, who have not served to the end of the war 
— private soldiers, militia ofiScers, and citizens who 
had borne the privations of that period, had been suc- 
cessively brought in review before the Senate; and 
their losses and sufferings, after having been forcibly 
depicted, were urged as a reason for the rejection of 
the claim of the petitioners. 

If, said Mr. V. B., any thing could aggravate the 
injustice already inflicted upon the petitioners, it 
would be an objection like this. Had the claims of 
the persons alluded to been similar to those of the pe- 
titioners, the argument derived from an equality of 
right would be entitled to attention; but if dissimilar, 
let them be disjoined. The allowance of the one 



APPENDIX. 105 

Can constitute no ground for the admission of the 
other; and by uniting them together, you throw up- 
on the petitioners the misfortunes of others, (misfor- 
tunes for which they are in no sense responsible,) in 
addition to their own. 

Now, Sir, said Mr. V. B., it is easy to demon- 
strate that no similarity exists. What is the object 
of this bill ? To repair a wrong in not having given 
a just equivalent in satisfaction of a promise of half- 
pay for life. Do the claims of any others rest upon 
a basis like this? It is alleged that any such or sim- 
ilar engagement was made with the soldier? Most 
assuredly not. If, then, no similarity exists, an at- 
temnt to connect them would be "^lainb^ unjust. 

I am aware, said Mr. V. B., of the imposing cha- 
racter of the argument that has been urged in favor 
of the claims of the common soldier. In a Govern- 
ment like ours, appeals in their favor cannot be made 
without effect. They derive their force from that 
all pervading jealousy of power, which is generally 
supposed to be the concomitant of official station and 
accidental elevation. Although not insensible to its 
influence, he was not disposed to complain of its ef- 
fect; and when properly directed or controlled, he 
considered it necessary to the successful operation of 
our political system. 

But, sir, said Mr. V. B., instead of yielding our 
judgments to favor on the one hand, or improper pre- 



106 APPENDIX. 

judice on the other; it became our duty as public men, 
to know no distinctions but those of merit, and no rule 
but that of justice. Was it true, then, he asked, that 
the partiality of the Goverment had inclined to the 
officer, in preference to the soilder? Is it not evident, 
on the contrary, that in every case the former has 
been treated with distrust, and the latter with indul- 
gence. Upon what can the soldiers predicate a claim 
for additional compensation? Upon the ground of 
the depreciation, and no other. The losses of the 
officers, on this account, were as much greater than 
those of the soldier, as the relative diffisrence of their 
pay; and yet this bill contains no provision in their 
favor upon that subject This, then, can form no ob- 
jection to the proposed allowance. But, sir, in re- 
lation to the relative condition of the officer and sol- 
dier when they entered the service. General Wash- 
ington informs us in his letters to the States, con- 
tained in the book which I hold in my hand, that the 
private soldiers had this signal advantage over the 
officers. They received at the time of enlistment, 
from the States, by which they were raised, a bounty 
from two to three hundred dollars, in good money, 
or, provision for their families. No such advances 
were received by the officers. What, sir, said Mr. 
V. B., has been the subsequent conduct of the Go- 
vernment? The average pay of the officers, calcu- 
lating from a colonel downwards, was forty dollars 



APPENDIX. 107 

per month. That of the soldier was six dollars and 
a quarter. 

Now, by the pension act of ISIS, the allowance 
to officers and soldiers, reduced to poverty, was, for 
the officers, twenty dollars per month, and for the 
soldiers eight dollars per month. Giving to the offi- 
cer less than half-pay, and to the soldier more than 
full pay. So, said he, would it ever be. Whatever 
might be the declamatory appeals upon this subject, 
there was no danger that the partiality of Congress 
would ever be manifested for the officer, to the exclu- 
sion of the fair claims of the soldier. To prevent 
misapprehension, said Mr. B., I will proceed fur- 
ther. I have said, that I am not insensible to the 
feeling which had been so strongly pressed into the 
argument. As an evidence of the sincerity v/ith 
which he spoke, he expressed his willingness to 
adopt any measure in favor of the soldier, that the 
gentleman opposed to him, could reasonably desire. 
Most of the soldiers, said Mr. V. B., had been pla- 
ced upon the pension list. The limited number 
who had not, must average seventy years of age. — 
Let, said he, a section be prepared, placing all who 
had enlisted for the war, upon the pension list, at 
eight dollars per month, without requiring evidence 
of poverty. For a measure like this, he would rea- 
dily vote; if even more were proposed, it should re- 
ceive his deliberate attention, and if possible, his 



108 APPENDIX. 

concurrence. Frauds might be practised ; but they 
would, of necessity, be of short duration. Even 
now, the expense would not be felt ; in a few years 
it would cease to be remembered ; while the fame 
that would attend it, would constitute one of the 
most valuable legacies to posterity that can be left 
behind us. 

Instead, then, of opposing the bill because it con- 
tains no provisiqn for the soldier, might he not with 
some propriety ask of gentlemen to propose a reme- 
dy for this defect, and not condemn for omission — 
whilst making no efibrt to have that omission sup- 
plied ? 

Another cause of apprehension from this bill, as a 
precedent, arises from the supposition that if it be 
intended to provide for losses incurred by the de- 
preciation of commutation certificates, the govern- 
ment will be bound to compensate for similar losses, 
whether incurred by the army or the public credit- 
ors. These fears, said Mr. V. B. I consider vision- 
ary. The bill does not propose a compensation on 
account of depreciation. This would be impractica- 
ble, because no data could be obtained by which an 
estimate could be formed to justify a legislative act. 
The depreciation of the commutation certificates has 
been referred to solely for the purpose of enforcing 
the equity of a claim originating in a contract, never 
satisfied by the act of commutation, but from which 



APPENDIX. 109 

you are legally absolved by the acts of limitation. — 
Until the soldiers can plead a similar contract, and 
the equitable considerations which the officers have 
urged, they can have no right to place their claims 
on an equal footing. Still, less, sir, said Mr. V. B. 
can it be said that this bill will afford a pretext for 
reviving the dormant claims of the public creditors. 
Their case is widely different from that of either the 
officers or the soldiers. While the pay of the army 
was fixed and stationary, its actual value was re- 
duced by the depreciation of currency, which they 
were compelled to receive at par. But the suppliers 
of the army, the great mass of public creditors, re- 
gulated their contracts by the fluctuations in which 
they expected to be paid, and the prices demanded 
bore an exact proportion to its depreciation in mar- 
ket. 

It has been urged, too, as an objection, that provi- 
sion had not been made for the officers who did not 
serve to the close of the war, and for the militia, — 
It was sufficient to say that with them the govern- 
ment had entered into no such engagement. The 
surviving officers of the revolution, who had been 
called from service before the end of the war, gene- 
rally by public considerations, w^ould not, he was 
persuaded, repine at the success of their brethren in 
arms, or make it the basis of unfounded complaint. 
It has been stated by the venerable and worthy Sena- 
10 



110 APPENDIX. 

tor before me, [Gen. S. Smith,] that this bill will 
not embrace his case, for the reasons he has given. 
Who would have more cause to complain than he, if 
indeed, any cause could be found in the measure pro- 
posed ? Of his conduct and services in two wars, it 
would be superfluous to speak. They are familiar 
to us all ; and he wished he could add, had been as 
well appreciated by the Union as by the State whose 
interests he had promoted in peace, and whose safety 
he had defended in war. The solicitude which he 
had manifested for the friends of his youth, and his 
companions in danger, must have awakened the sen- 
sibilities of those who witnessed it ; while his zealous 
though disinterested support of the bill upon your 
table, constituted a convincing proof that it would be 
viewed by others, who might be excluded from its 
provisions, with equal satisfaction. 

The last, and to his mind, the strongest objection 
against the passage of this bill, was its making no 
provision for the widows and children of deceased 
officers, who were entitled to half-pay. By whom, 
sir, said Mr. V. B. has this objection been adduced? 
By the parties themselves ? No, sir ; by those who 
have had no conference with the parties. Do they 
advocate the claims of the heirs and widows because 
they have heretofore been importunate for relief? — 
No, sir; from the first agitation of this question; in 
1810, to the present moment, he was authorized, he 



APPENDIX. Hi 

believed, to say, that not a single petition had been 
presented in their behalf. Sir, said Mr. V. B, we 
resist the claims of the living by exorcising the spi- 
rits of the dead. The gentleman from Georgia de- 
clares that he will not vote for the bill, because the 
heirs and widows are not included, and that he would 
not vote for it, if they were. It has been asked by 
the Senator from South Carolina, whether a positive 
debt, a vested interest, does not descend to the heir, 
and whether a government, any more than an indivi- 
dual, is discharged by the death of its creditor? — 
The objection thus presented is plausible in appear- 
ance, but he was persuaded easily surmounted. He 
had already, in his opinion, given a satisfactory an- 
swer. Whatever might have been the original char- 
acter of the claim, it could no longer be regarded as 
legally binding on the government. It was barred 
by the statute of limitations — a measure sometimes 
harsh, but not the less founded in policy and justice. 
This shield, interposed by the government for justi- 
fiable ends, might be removed, at the option of the 
government only in the cases which policy and jus- 
tice might demand. It has a perfect right to permit 
it to operate upon the officers, their widows, or their 
heirs — and neither might, in strictness, have a legal 
ground of complaint. I have endeavored, said Mr. 
Y. B. to show that equity requires, and policy does 
not forbid the allowance proposed for the surviving 



112 APPENDIX. 

officers. The claims of the widows, stood, in his 
opinion, on a different foundation. But he should 
not be willing, for one, to oppose them. Their num- 
ber must be small ; not half as great, in all proba- 
bility, as that of surviving officers ; say one hundred 
at the outside. Give them a gratuity of one or two 
thousand dollars each ; and if necessary, deduct it 
from the sum you would otherwise give to the sur- 
viving officers. They, he was well assured, would 
not utter a complaint. On the contrary, the value 
of what they received, would be doubly enhanced 
by the cause of the deduction. The supposed claims 
of the heirs could not be presented to your attention 
with equal force. Of the two thousand four hun- 
dred and eighty officers of the revolution, two thou- 
sand two hundred and fifty are no more. Their 
temporal interests, whatever they were, have been 
distributed, in some cases, among successive gene- 
rations. To ascertain and distribute the respective 
shares, to which the heirs would be entitled, of the 
sn^all amount now proposed to be given, if not whol- 
ly impracticable, would involve an expense that 
would consume the means of your bounty ; and 
without being productive of substantial benefit, your 
resQurces would be exhausted. But, said he, these 
are considerations of an inferior character, founded 
on expediency only. Your refusal to grant to the 
heirs, may be placed on the highest ground of prin- 



APPENDIX. 113 

<:iple. Whatever you now do in favor of the officer, 
must be voluntary, proceeding from your liberality 
and gratitude. All other obligations have been cut 
off by time. All your endowments springing from 
such motives, being for the reward of personal ser- 
vices, may with propriety be confined to those by 
whom those services were rendered. This, said he, 
is not a new principle, in your legislation. It lies at 
the foundation of the act of 1S18, providing, not for 
the heirs, but certain portions of the revolutionary 
officers and soldiers, by the operation of which, mil- 
lions have in his opinion been beneficially applied. 
It was called indeed a pension act, but with no more 
propriety, according to the established principles of 
the government, than the bill upon your table. 

What, according to these principles, are the grounds 
upon which pensions have beeen granted ? They 
were exclusively, disability produced by known 
wounds received in the public service, and half pay 
for a limited time, to the widow and infant children 
of those who had fallen in action. Since the date of 
our independence, these only have been the legal and 
appropriate causes for being placed on the list of 
pensioners. The annual allowance to a limited num- 
ber of the officers and soldiers of the revolutionary 
army, by the act of ISIS, was founded on no such 
consideration, otherwise the widows and orphans of 
the deceased officers and soldiers would have been as 
10* 



114 APPENDIX 

much entitled to your bounty as they can be now. — 
They did not receive it ; and the only justifiable rea- 
son which could then have been given, was the one 
which may now be assigned. You had a right to 
make your donation personal. You had a right to 
enlarge or contract the circle of your beneficence, 
according to your own views of the state of your 
treasury, the exigencies of society, and the claims of 
humanity. Among the most powerful motives for 
its adoption, was a desire to rescue the country from 
the reproach of seeing those to whom it was indebt- 
ed for its liberties, thrown, in the evening of their 
days, amidst the prosperity they had been instru- 
mental in producing, upon the cold charities of an 
unfeeling world. It was to prevent the vivid and 
heart-rending picture of Roman ingratitude, which, 
though the invention of modern days, has so long 
interested the world, from being only descriptive of 
real life in the streets of this proud capitol. 

Mr. V. B. said he would say nothing as to the 
amount. Full justice liad already been done to that 
subject. The general object was to make up, in 
part, the loss sustained by the officers out of the pro- 
fits made by the government, by the successful result 
of its compromise with them. Let us, therefore, 
said he, pass the bill upon your table. Let this body 
have the credit of originating it. Let no narrow or 
weak views impede our course. No matter where 



APPENDIX. 1J5 

those honorable and patriotic men are from ; wheth- 
er from the North or the South, the East or the 
West ; whether from the old States or the new. In 
every State where the blessings of a free govern- 
ment are enjoyed, there they had a name, if not a 
local habitation, that could not fail to work its vv^ay 
to the hearts of their fellow-citizens. It was true, 
he said, that by the list submitted, it did not appear 
that any of the officers resided in seven of the new 
States, and he was not sorry for it. If he were not 
deceived in the character as well of the people of the 
States, as of their representatives on that floor, they 
would rejoice that an opportunity was thus pres&nted 
to evince their devotion lo the cause of the revolu 
tion, and their gratitude for the services of those 
who fought our battles in that day, without even a 
suspicion of a selfish or local object. This will be 
the more gratifying to them, because it was not their 
good fortune, as States, to be in a situation to take 
part in that great struggle, out of which grew this 
mighty empire, and all the blessings of civil and re- 
ligious liberty, that we now so preeminently enjoy. 
He had not a doubt that all that remained for them to 
do, they would do well. If evidence of the flict were 
wanting, he had only to allude to the small but pa- 
triotic State of Illinois, which alone had instructed 
her representatives on that floor, upon the subject 
under consideration, in a spirit reflecting upon her- 



116 APPENDIX. 

self the highest credit, and affording the most flatter- 
ing presage of her future greatness. 

Mr. V. B. saidj that he was distressed by the con- 
sciousness that he had already trespassed too much 
upon the kind indulgence of the Senate. In any 
other case he would have considered it reprehensi- 
ble to have done so. He would therefore, (although 
there were yet many considerations which he intend- 
ed to have urged,) draw his observations to a close. 
There was, however, one point upon which he felt 
too much solicitude to suffer it to pass unnoticed. — 
If by any one he had been understood as casting 
aught of censure or reproach upon the old Congress, 
he desired to correct so erroneous an impression. — 
He could not indeed have done so consistently with 
his own long cherished opinions. On the contrary, 
he did not believe that the world ever witnessed, or 
ever again will witness a body of men more patriotic 
or enlightened. He would not believe that it was 
in their nature to be indifferent to the just claims of 
the revolutionary army. The question with them 
was not what they would, but what they could do. — 
The embarrassments under which they labored from 
want of power, and the backwardness of the States, 
who themselves were struggling against the exhaust- 
ing effects of a cruel, bloody and protracted war, 
were known to all. As little did he wish to cast re- 
proach upon the councils of the nation. Every 



APPENDIX. ll^ 

thing could not be done at once. Much has been 
done under the present Constitution, to satisfy the 
claims of justice, and vindicate the character of the 
republic. It is our good fortune that something still 
remains for us to do. Fear not, that in doing it, you 
will go beyond the wishes of your constituents — 
your feelings lag behind them. Speaking for his 
immediate constituents — and he had not the presump- 
tion to suppose that they were more just or public 
spirited than their neighbors — for them he could say, 
with confidence, that, having some share in the na- 
tional funds, and contributing no inconsiderable part 
of their amount, they would willingly pour them out, 
like water, in a cause so righteous. With them, a 
million more or less of public bebt, compared with 
the preservation of the public faith, would be as no- 
thing. He gloried in the consciousness that he was 
a representative of a people influenced by such ele- 
vated sentiments. Every day, said he, makes the 
remnant of this band of worthies more dear to the 
American people. When that period arrives — which 
a majority of the Senate may expect to see — when 
the last of the officers of the revolutionary army 
shall be called from time into eternity, it will be the 
cause of keen regret, and self-reproach, if, upon a 
review of the past, it shall appear that any thing was 
omitted that ought to have been done, to smooth 
their passage to the tomb. 



118 APPENDIX. 

One word more, and he had done. The Senator 
from Maine, [Mr. Chandler,] who, although he 
had lost his father in the struggle, had felt it to be 
his duty (and there was no man, he believed, who 
more implicitly followed his sense of duty,) to op- 
pose the bill, had, with his characteristic shrewdness 
and pertinency, asked — did General Washington, 
whilst at the head of government, ever recommend 
this subject to the notice of Congress? The worth}' 
Senator well knew what the answer must be, and 
the train of reflections it would give rise to. Gen- 
eral Washington did not — but why? Before and af- 
ter the war, he spared no pains to make the States 
sensible of what was due to the officers on this very 
point. His letters have been read. He urged them 
by all the considerations that belonged to the subject, 
to act efficiently for their relief. He failed. After 
he came into the government, the officers themselves 
evinced no disposition to revive their claims, and it 
certainly would not have become him to be the first 
to bring them forward. It is not difficult to con- 
ceive why the officers were, at that day, willing to 
avoid all applications for pecuniary aid. New pros- 
pects opened — they were probably not exempt from 
those feelings of ambition and hope of preferment, 
which actuate mankind. They have out-lived them, 
and they humbly ask for justice. But, sir, what 
was the language of the Father of his Country, when 



Al'PENDIX. 119 

the subject was an open one ? In his circular of 
June, 17S3, to the governors of the States, he said : 
<' The provision of half pay for life, as promised by 
^'the resolution of Congress, was a reasonable com- 
*^ pensation offered at a time when congress had no- 
^'•' thing else to give to the officers for services then 
*^ to be performed ; it was the price of their blood 
*^and your independence, di^di as a debt of honour, it 
'' can never be cancelled until it be fairly discharg- 
*' ed/' One question, said Mr. V. B. and I have 
done. — Has it been fairly discharged ? 



[In reference to the rejection of Mr. Van Buren, by the Senate 
of the United States, when nominated as Minister to Great 
Britahi, we have selected the masterly speech of Mr. Forsyth, 
and the correspondence between the Republican Members of 
the legislature of New York and President Jackson, as abun- 
dantly sufficient to vindicate the conduct of Mr. Van Buren, 
and to expose the true character of that wanton, violent and 
unjustifiable measure.] 

REMARKS OF HON. JOHN FORSYTH, 

In the U, S. Senate, on the nomination of Mr . Van Buren. 

[Mr. Forsyth makes no apology for the rough sketch he presents 
of the remarks made by him in the secret sessions of the Sen- 
ate, on the nomination of Mr. Van Buren. The speeches 
against the nomination having been, for the first time in the 
history of this government, thrown upon the people, it is due 
to the person assailed, that what was suggested on the other 
side should be known. Mr. Forsyth is well aware that, in exe- 
cuting his part of this duty, he has done justice neither to the 
subject nor to himself.] 



120 APPENDIX. 

I regret, Mr. President, that the Senator from Mis- 
sississippi, (Mr. Poindexter,) has been so long absent 
from his seat, not only because he has been suffering 
pain, but because had he been here, he could have 
escaped the commission of numerous errors into 
which he has been led. The friends of Mr. Van Bu- 
ren have not obstructed inquiry into his conduct ; they 
have challenged investigation, offered it in every and 
any form consistent with the obligations of the Senate 
to its own character. The Senator from Maine, (Mr. 
Holmes) shrunk from his own resolution. It was 
laid aside by the votes of those opposed, contrary to 
the votes and wishes of those friendly to the nomina- 
tion. That Senator was distinctly invited by one of 
the Senators from New York, (Mr. Marcy,) to spe- 
cify any act dishonorable to the character of Mr. 
Van Buren, and a pledge given that inquiry into it 
should be made in the amplest manner by a commit- 
tee having all the power necessary to the establishment 
of truth. The Senator from Maine was distinctly 
told by the Senator from South Carolina, (Mr. 
Hayne,) on what terms he could command his vote. 
He was told to cover the ground indicated, by proof, 
and he would join in tiie condemnation of the choice 
of the President. The Senator from Maine delibe- 
rated on this offer, and, after deliberation, abandoned 
his resolution, leaving all to grope their way to a 
conclusion, as accident or prejudice might direct 



APPENDIX. 121 

them. A promise was made, that he should have a 

committee if he would venture upon it; and the offer 
was deliberately and most unequivocally declined. 
Yet, after all this, at this eleventh hour, the Senator 
from Mississippi says, if the friends of Mr. Van Bu- 
ren will solicit a committee, he will give what he has 
coliectedj while confined to his sick chamberj and on 
which his own opinion is formed, and if the commit- 
tee is not raised, he will, with this matter in his poc- 
ket, vote against the nomination, in order to preserve 
the morality of the nation, endangered by the bestow- 
al of a new oHice on a garabling politician. 

As the friend, personal and political, of Mr. Van 
Buren, I reject the liberal offer of the Senator, in 
defiance of his threatened negative on the nomina- 
tion. Let him unite with those who, like liim, are 
so anxious to preserve the morality of the coantry by 
rejecting a man whose most odious crime is his rising 
popularity and transcendent ability. The friends of 
Mr. Van Buren will not degrade him by asking a 
Committee, to free him from the suspicions engender- 
ed in the Senator's mind, in his search after correct 
Information, from sources within his reach. His cha- 
racter wants no such justification. Does the gentle- 
man wish to justif}?" his vote? Let him propose a 
Committee; he shall have our concurrence. Does 
he desire to convince the Senate? Let him produce 
the private source information, which, I venture to 
U 



J22I APPENDIX, 

«ay, like the only one he speaks of openly ^ is worth- 
less in the eye of any man who is not so embittered 
by prejudice that he cannot see truth. This letter, 
by a former partizan, a paltry editor of a paltry news- 
paper, and to prove what ? that Mr. Van Buren said 
that the late Cabinet was dissolved by the conspiracy 
ol the Vice-President, to drive Maj. Eaton from the 
Cabinet, and that he withdrew to escape the conse- 
quences of the dissolution. Sir, Mr. Van Buren holds 
no such conversation with persons who were once his 
partizans, and now his enemies. 

But supposing he had declared, or does entertain, 
the opinion imputed to him. Is it a crime which 
disqualifies him for a high office, that be believes the 
eharge made and sought to be established by the late 
Secretary of War? If such be the Senator's opinion, 
can he tell us how far the exclusion extends? The 
Senator's letter story is contradictrd by his previous- 
ly expressed opinion. What, Sir, the most artful 
man in the world, proclaim to a paltry editor that he 
acted in the manner indicated, to escape the storm 
consequent on the dissolution of the Cabinet! If it 
had been true — if such bad been his motive, he would 
have sought to conceal it from himself. No degree 
of confidential intimacy could have tempted an artful 
intriguer to such a disclosure. The story if true, 
proves a man, whose extraordinary 'prudence, under 
all circumstances^ through a long life iii the stormy 



APPENDIX. 1^ 

politics of a vexed and turbulent State, has gained 
him the confidence of his friends, and called down 
upon him the charge of consummate artifice from 
his enemies, to be a silly driveller— a simpleton, 
opening his budget of petty motives to one whose 
trade was to thrive, by making himself important by 
confidential and oracular disclosures in his unknown 
journal. 

Mr. Van Buren stands in a strange condition be- 
fore us ; from the beginning of this administration, 
before he came to the post assigned him, until the 
present hour, he is held accountable by a certain de- 
scription of political men in this country for all the 
evil that has been done, and all the good that has been 
omitted. Now, sir, if he is accountable for every 
thing, if his hand is to be traced every where, let him 
have credit for the good that has, and the evil that 
has not, been done. Balance the account of the ad- 
mitted good and evil imputed, and the result will fill 
the hearts of his enemies with the bitterest disapr 
pointment. But, sir, this is not the justice intended 
for him. He is responsible for all that is complained 
of. Let us see the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. 
Poindexter's) catalogue. There were no Cabinet 
Councils — did the country suffer from his failure to 
follow the example of late administrations, from this 
adherence to the example of General Washington? 
But there was one Cabinet Council called to sit oo 



124 APPENDIX. 

a lady's reputation. Indeed, and this Mr. Van Bu- 
ren is also answerable for. And is it true, sir, that 
the honorable members of the late cabinet who re- 
mained so tranquilly at their posts enjoying all their 
emoluments and honors with becoming gratification, 
suffered themselves to be deprived of their accustom- 
ed rights of a seat and voice at the Council Board of 
deliberations on great matters of vital interest to the 
public, and yet obeyed the beck and call of Mr. 
Van Buren, to sit upon a lady's reputation! Of what 
stuff were they made that they did not distinctly as- 
certain if this restriction of claimed right, and this 
insulting call upon them to step out of their appro- 
priate spheres was the work of Mr. Van Buren or 
the act of Che President. If the first, why did they 
not demand his dismission, and, if refused, indig- 
nantly throw^ their commissions in the teeth of the 
Chief Magistrate. The omitted Cabinet Councils, 
and the single call, were no such dreadful offences 
until obliged to follow Mr. Van Buren's example 
and resign. The history of the last year establishes 
the wisdom of the President in calling no Cabinet 
Council to deliberate as there could have been no 
harmony in their consultations, and on the single 
question said to have been submitted, the Executive 
Cabinet have shown themselves incompetent to de- 
cide. He is not competent to decide on a lady's re- 
putation, who throws out of view on the question of 



APPENDIX. 125 

how she should be treated, her guilt or innocence. I 
will not condescend further to refer to the trash with 
which the public press has been loaded and polluted 
for months, and unless tlie Senator from Mississippi 
has better evidence than the public has yet seen, the 
hope of implicating Mr. Van Buren in the distur- 
bances that preceded the dissolution of the Cabinet, 
is forlorn. 

Let us see the next crime in the catalogue of the 
Senator from Mississippi, (Mr. Poindexter.) Mr. 
Van Buren intrigued the dissolution of the late Cabi- 
net, taking care previously to secure a safe and pro- 
minent retreat in the mission to England. It is 
known to every well informed man in this district 
that Mr. Van Buren, by his admirable temper, his 
conciliating manners and unwaried exertions, kept the 
cabinet together long after its discordant materials 
were so well ascertained that its dissolution sooner or 
later was a matter of common speculation. Sir, no- 
body doubted that the parties could not get on toge- 
ther, and the only surprise was, that the President 
did not proceed to restore harmony by the removal 
of those whose disagreements produced the discord. 
But Mr. Van Buren had the unparalleled effrontery to 
resign on motives of delicacy and disinterestedness, 
and as this mode of conduct was so unusual, it his 
excited a vast deal of surmise and wonder. The Sena- 
tor from Mississippi, (Mr. P.) has however, satisfac- 
11* 



126 APPENDTX. 

torily to himself, solved the mystery. Mr. Van Bu- 
ren arranged himself into a prominent place, before 
he resigned, and a new cabinet to suit his ambitious 
views. Now, sir, as to the proof of this preconcert- 
ed arrangement for his accommodation and elevation. 
The President told somebody, who was a late Sec- 
retary, that Mr. Van Buren was to go to England, 
and named to him the Secretaries, who were to come 
in ; but this was after Mr. Van Buren had resigned. 
In the interview^ it is acknowledged that Mr. Van 
Buren's letter of resignation was handed to this vo- 
lunteer repeater of conversations with the Chief Ma- 
gistrate. But the Senator says it was before the let- 
ter was published — thence he concludes Mr. V. B. 
had made a cat's paw of the President for the pro- 
motion of his own views : a most logical inference, 
truly ! And this new cabinet arranged to further 
Mr. V. B.'s unholy ambition ! Is there man, woman, 
or child in the country, who does not know and feel 
that the change has been beneficial to the public, that 
there is novv more strength, more virtue and more 
harmony than there was before ? Is there any man 
who wall hazard his reputation by asserting that the 
present secretaries are capable of being made the in- 
struments of any man's ambition, or so subject to the 
bias of individual influence, as the late? Partizans 
are not substituted for pure, disinterested patriots ; 
and let me say, sir, that more partizans have gone out 
than have come in. 



APPENDIX. 127 

But this mission to England was not sought by Mr. 
Van Buren ; his friends know that it was pressed on 
him by the President, and that it was reluctantly ac- 
cepted at the earnest solicitations of friends who were 
sotisfied it would promote his own reputation, and 
redound to the honor and welfare of the nation. I 
will not follow further the Senator's lead. Long 
known to me as a politician and as a man, acting to- 
gether in the hour of political adversity, when we 
had lost all but our honor — a witness of his move- 
ments when elevated to povver, and in the possession 
of the confidence of the Chief Magistrate, and of the 
great majority of the people, I have never witnessed 
aught in Mr. Van Buren which requires conceal- 
ment, palliation, or coloring — never any thing to les- 
sen his character as a patriot and as a man — nothing 
which he might not desire to see exposed to the 
scrutiny of every member of this body, with the 
-calm confidence of unsullied integrity. He is called 
an artful man — a giant of artifice — a wily magician. 
From whom does he receive these opprobious names? 
From open enemies and pretended friends. In the 
midst of all the charges that have been brought 
against him, in shapes more varying than those of 
Proteus, and thick as the autumnal leaves that strew 
the vale of Volambrosa, where is the false friend or 
malignant enemy that has fixed upon him one dis- 
ihonorable or degrading act? If innocent of artifice, 



128 APPENDIX. 

if governed by a high sense of honor, and regulating 
his conduct by elevated principles, this is not wonder- 
ful ; but, if the result of skill, of the ars celere artem, 
he must be more cunning than the devil himself, to 
have thus avoided the snares of enemies and the 
treachery of pretended friends. 

It is not possible, sir, that he should have escaped, 
had he been otherwise than pure. Those ignorant of 
his unrivalled knowledge of human character, his 
power of penetrating into the designs, and defeating 
the purposes of his adversaries, seeing his rapid ad- 
vance to public honors, and popular confidence, im- 
pute to art what is the natural result of those simple 
causes. Extraordinary talent, untiring industry, in- 
cessant vigilance, the happiest temper, which success 
cannot corrupt, nor disappointment sour ; these are 
the sources of his unexampled success, — the magic 
arts — the artifices of intrigue, to which only he has 
resoited in his eventful life. Those who envy his 
success, may learn wisdom from his example. 

Having disposed of the catalogue of the Senator 
from Mississippi, let me advert to the grounds occu- 
pied by a little army of objections on the other side 
of this chamber : How many sacrifices of feeling to 
duty, are we not about to witness ! the honorable 
Senators of Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware, Mas* 
sachusetts, Ohio and Kentucky ; are constrained by 
duty to vote against his nomination — and all, on pub- 



APPENDIX. 129 

lie grounds — no private feeling; Oh no! nothing like 
it; public duty against private feeling, is the order of 
the day. And what is the dreadful public crime 
Mr. Van j3uren has committed? Hear — sir, hear. 
He has degraded the country by giving instructions 
to the late Minister to Great Britain, Mr, McLane, 
about the West India trade. What instructions? 
Can it be those on which the act of 1S30 passed — 
those which have been among our printed documents 
for these twelve months^ forming part of the Presi- 
dent's communication to Congress of January, 1S31. 
Have those honorable gentlemen who are now so 
shocked at the public degradation, so eager to punish 
the author of this national disgrace, been sleeping at 
their posts — no one to cry out, to ring the alarm, at 
the dangers to which the public honor was exposed — 
no one to interfere to prevent the United States from 
being placed at the foot- stool of the British throne? 
Quietly witnessing the consummation of the crime, 
passing an act with their knowledge of these instruc- 
tions, to secure the boon, which they now see was 
begged in the name of party from the British crown; 
we are now electrified by bursts of indignation at 
this first act of degradation in the history of Ameri- 
can Diplomacy! 

What a spectacle is here! — How long is it since 
he who was the instrument to bow us down before 
Great Britain, was unanimously confirmed to a post 



130 APPENDIX. 

of honor and important trust? But the instrument 
by whom he was ordered to act, is to bear the pun- 
ishment. The author of the instructions, he by 
whom they were given, is too high to be reached at 
present; the author of the crime, he who ordered it, 
escapes — he who commits it, by order, goes free; he 
who conveys the order, answers for both, and upon 
his head falls all the indignation of these incensed 
Senators, acting upon public grounds, and reluctant- 
ly performing a painful — painful — duty ! 

Well, sir, to this degradation. It is found in the 
instructions to Mr. McLane; and to make out their 
case, the honorable Senators from Massachusetts and 
Kentucky, have given us a sketch of the history of 
the West India negotiation.— Both brought down 
their narratives to the taunting reply of Mr. Canning 
to Mr. Gallatin, given during the late administration. 
From this point, both these honorable Senators found 
it convenient to slide — no, sir, to leap over all inter- 
vening events to the instructions to Mr. McLane. 
With permission, I will fill up this unimportant 
chasm. — The terms of the British act of Parliament 
not having been accepted by the United States, 
American vessels were excluded by an order in Coun- 
cil, from the British West India ports. Why this 
important interest was neglected, we have been just 
told by the Senator from Kentucky: "the late admin- 
istration were ignorant of the act of Parliament until 



APPEN'DIX. 131 

it was casually seen by them." " It was not offi- 
cially communicated by the English Government to 
our Government.'' <^ Even when we were colonies, 
we were not bound by British acts of Parliament^ 
unless specially named in them." Indeed : is it pos- 
sible that the late administration did not know an act 
of Parliament affecting important interests? Where 
were all our accredited ministers and commercial 
agents in Great Britain, that this government was 
not informed of this measure, known to all Europe, 
and taken advantage of by most of the powers in- 
terested in it. But it was not officially communica- 
ted to us. Well, sir, was it officially communicated 
to any other Government interested in its contents 
as we were? The British Government, I apprehend, 
would have considered such a communication a gross 
reflection upon our accredited agents. Itwould have 
compelled them to say, in effect, we communicate to 
you an act, supposing your agents are too negligent 
of their duty to send it to you. W^hat were our 
ministers and agents about, how were they employ- 
ed, that they did not send to their Government this 
important information ? 

But the last excuse is worse than all ; "even when 
Colonies, we were not bound by acts of Parliament 
in which we were not named specially." What a 
discovery ! and it is concluded from this wise recol- 
lection, that we are not now bowid to take notice of 
acts of Parliament not specially and officially com- 



132 APPENDIX. 

mimicaied to us, I imagine we are not bound by 
them, communicated to us or not, but we are bound 
to know all those touching our interests, and any ad- 
ministration is severel}^ reprehensible for ignorance 
of them, and for failing to attend to those that bear 
injuriously upon the interests of the people. The 
act was, however, at last known, and when Mr. 
Gallatin presented himself to negotiate, with instruc- 
tions to waive all claims that were formerly present- 
ed, and had prevented an arrangement, he was taunt- 
ingly told, you have lost your day in court — the pri- 
vilege, the boon, offered, had not^been secured by 
accepting the conditions: we have taken our course, 
negociation is not our plan. Well, sir, what said the 
administration of which the honorable Senator from 
Kentucky formed a part? There was an act of Con- 
gress, requiring, on the shutting of the British West 
India ports against us, an interdict by proclamation. 
Smarting under this taunting refusal to negociate, 
what was done? The execution of an act of Congress 
positively directing the proclamation, was suspend- 
ded by executive authority for two months before the 
meeting of Congress and during the whole succeed- 
ing session, to see if Congress, who had been pre- 
vented the preceding session from legislating — 
the administration preferred the eclat of a negotia- 
tion — could not legislate the executive out of the dif- 
ficulty into which he had placed the country by negli- 



APPENDIX. 133 

gence, or if the Senator from Kentucky pleases, ig- 
norance of the act of Parliament. We all know how 
that effort terminated. The two houses disagreed 
about the mode of effecting the purpose: both, how- 
ever, willing to take the privilege on the conditions 
proposed by Great Britain. The Senate passed a 
bill — the House, under the influence of the Senator 
from Massachusetts, amended, and the question was, 
whether one or the other oblique path should be 
trodden. The session terminated without lesjislative 
enactment, and then, and not till then, the proclama- 
tion of interdiction was issued. Thus, sir, smarting 
under the taunt of the British minister, our adminis- 
tration left the whole trade in the hands of Great 
Britain of six or eight months — sought to cover itself 
from censure by invoking legislative interposition, and 
then, was compelled to act on the suspended statute. 
The interdict being proclaimed, the trade stood 
upon the very advantageous footing, according to the 
Senator's judgment, which we have lost by the nego- 
tiation. Notwithstanding we were enjoying such 
eminent advantages, the late administration, in spite 
of the taunt, directed Mr. Gallatin to try again to 
procure what is now disparaged, by opening the 
door of negotiation after it had been shut in his 
face. He was again repulsed. But this humiliation 
was not enough ; Mr. Barbour was sent to London 
and he too had his instructions; and went, cap in hand; 
12 



m 



APPENDIX. 



knocked at the closed door for negotiation. Sir, he 
knocked at the door of the British Ministry, under 
circumstances humiliating in the extreme. If a gen- 
tleman should go a second time to a house, the pro- 
prietor of which, speaking from his window, had di- 
rected his porter to deny him to the visiter, his visit 
would have been somewhat like Mr. Barbour's second 
call.. Yes, sir, yet the humiliation was vain — the se- 
cond as fruitless as the first. 

Such was the condition of this question, when 
General Jackson was placed at the head of the coun- 
try. One of the first objects of his administration, 
was the recovery of the British West India trade ; 
an arrangement of it upon terms of just reciprocity, 
satisfactory to both parties, and therefore, promising 
to be permanent. Mr. McLane was selected to go to 
England, and these much abused instructions pre- 
pared by the late of Secretary of State. Let it be 
remembered, sir, these are instructions from the Pre- 
sident of the United States to the American minister, 
never intended for the eye of the British govern- 
ment, and which in no other country but ours, would 
ever have seen the light. 

The opening of the negotiation was the chief dif- 
ficulty. To remove it, two grounds are taken. It 
will be remembered that our refusal to accede to the 
terms of the act of parliament, was made the ground 
of refusing to treat with Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bar- 



APPENDIX, 135 

boiir, both of whom went prepared to offer an ar^ 
rangement by reciprocal legislation, taking the act 
of parliament as the British legislation. To obviate 
the difficulty, after a fair and full history of the trans- 
action, these suggestions are presented to Mr. Mc^ 
Lane, to be pressed so far as he might deem it use- 
ful and proper so to do. If the British persist in 
refusing to hear you, on this subject, remind them of 
the circumstances that have occurred ; of the differ- 
ence of opinion among ourselves on it; of the aban- 
donment by the administration of those pretences 
that had prevented an adjustment of it ; that they are 
not to be again brought forward ; that the past ad- 
ministration was not amenable to the British Gov- 
ernment, nor to any other than the people cf the 
United States, who had passed upon all their acts. — ^ 
Say to the British, if it makes pretensions formerly 
advanced, the pretext for still declining to negotiate, 
the sensibility of the American people will be deep>° 
ly awakened. That the tone of public feeling by a 
course so unwise and untenable, will be aggravated 
by the known fact that Great Britain had opened her 
colonial ports to Russia and France, notwithstanding 
a similar omission to accede on their parts, to the 
terms offered hy the act of Parliament. And this, 
sir, is represented as the language of entreaty, as the 
begging of a boon. This menace of the public in- 
dignation : this declaration that the late admjqisjtr^- 



136 APPENDIX. 

tion was neither to be censured or praised by foreign 
nations ; was amenable for their conduct to no earth- 
ly tribunal but the people of the United States, is 
tortured into a claim of privileges, on party grounds 
for party purposes, and as a disgraceful attempt to 
throw upon a previous administration unmerited dis- 
grace, for the sake of currying favor with a foreign 
power, and that power of all others. Great Britain. 

Great Britain could not resist this frank and open 
and manly appeal. Committed by their concession 
in favor of France and Russia, and the ministry dis- 
tinctly told by Mr. McLane, that he would not re- 
main if they declined negotiation, or placed their 
refusal upon any other ground than an open declara- 
tion that their interests could not permit them to 
enter into a reciprocal engagement with the United 
States, the English Cabinet reluctantly yielded ; and 
then came the most odious feature in this transaction, 
that which has sharpened the intellect of the oppo- 
sition, to discover dishonor in truth, and a want of 
dignity in a frank exposition of facts, its crowning 
success, Mr. McLane and Mr. Van Buren, under 
Gen. Jackson, succeeded in affecting an object of 
public solicitude, that Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay and 
Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Barbour could not obtain. — 
The country was humiliated by the preceding admi- 
nistration without success ; hence the charge against 
Mr. Van Buren ; hence the overwhelming anxiety to 



APPENDIX. 137 

jsrove that the success of the late negotiation has been 
purchased by humiliation. The British cabinet de- 
sired not to make the arrangement, it interfered with 
great local interests, and if they could, without a 
manifest and unjust distinction to our prejudice, they 
would have declined admitting the United States to 
the privileges granted to the other maratime powers. 
Not satisfied with his condemnation of Mr. Van 
Buren's instructions, the Senator from Kentucky at- 
tempts to show us, by referring to another letter of 
instructions, how this affair should have been con- 
ducted consistently with his ideas of national honor 
and dignity. The letter from which he has read to 
the Senate extracts, is, I think, signed H. Clay. — 
Will the Senator tell us who is responsible for it ?— 
If he is, then he exhibits himself in the singular po- 
sition of a man triumphantly contrasting the work of 
his own hand, with that of a rival author. The Se- 
nator knows that there were two other instructions, 
written by himself of a subsequent date, one to Mr. 
Gallatin after Congress failed to legislate, and ano- 
ther to Governor Barbour ; neither of which is be- 
fore us, therefore, not to be contrasted with Mr. 
Van Buren's work. I am content to abide by the 
result of a contrast of the instructions he has con- 
demned, with those he has quoted. Let us see how 
the gentleman's letter will bear the test of examina- 
tion. Mr. Gallatin, he says, was not instructed to 
12* 



138 APPENDIX. 

abandon a right ; we were to be at liberty at a more 
convenient season to resume it. Mr. Gallatin was 
to give a strong proof of our desire to conciliate by a 
temporary concession of what we had previously 
claimed throughout the whole negotiation. Was 
Mr. Gallatin instructed to say to the British Govern- 
ment, this is a temporary concession? No, sir, he 
was authorised to waive the claim, and make an ar- 
rangement on the British basis. Put this into plain 
language, and what was it; stript of its diplomatic 
drapery and verbiage, and it is neither more nor less 
than an abandonment of a pretension, which, though 
we had supported by argument, we were resolved 
not to enforce by power. Sir, this covering up of a 
plain truth is the common trick of diplomacy ; it de- 
ceives no one, and had Mr. Gallatin presented these 
conciliatory concessions, they must have been re- 
ceived as a virtual and total abandonment of our pre- 
tension. The honied words of right waived from a 
conciliatory spirit, and with the hope of correspond- 
ing friendly dispositions, would have been received 
with a sneer, lurking in the official — artificial smile 
of a — thorough bred diplomatist. The Senator, in- 
sists, however, it was a right and not a pretension. — 
If it was a right, why was it waived or surrendered ? 
For conciliation sake ? Why, sir, we were the of- 
fended party. England had taunted us. England 
had refused once, twice, thrice to negotiate, and yet 



APPENDIX. 139 

to conciliate England, we were waiving a well- 
grounded right ? For what purpose were we thus 
conciliating? To place the trade on its present foot- 
ing, to the great injury of the navigation and com- 
merce of the United States. Such is the view now 
taken by several honorable senators who have favor- 
ed us with their opinion on this subject. 

The present administration waived no right for 
conciliation sake ; sacrificed no principle. It stood 
upon the truth, and truth only ; and whatever may 
be the custom of others, and the ordinary usages of 
diplomacy, the administration was right. Nations 
fold themselves in the robes of falsehood, and swell 
and strut in vain, to preserve an air of dignity and 
decorum. No nation ever was just to its own cha- 
racter, or preserved its dignity, that did not stand at 
all times before the world in the sober and simple 
garb of truth. Sir, the character of our diplomacy 
has undergone a marked change ; we are no longer 
pretenders to skill and artifice ; all our wiles are facts 
tnd reasons — all our artifice, truth and justice. The 
honorable Senator tells us that this instruction is 
false, or else it proves Mr. V. B. to have been crimi- 
nally ignorant of what it was his duty to know. — 
How does he make this appear ? He alleges that 
Mr. V. B. charged the late administration with be- 
ing the first to advance the pretension it subsequent- 
ly abandoned — and this he declares is untrue, the 



140 APPENDIX. 

pretension was set up before the late administration 
came into power. Now, sir, as I read this paragraph, 
Mr. V. B. does not charge the late administration 
with being the first to advance this pretension. The 
Senator will recollect this is a letter to Mr. McLane, 
whose personal knowledge is appealed to, and who 
must have understood the writer as alluding to a fact 
of general notoriety. The words are " those who 
first advanced,''^ Src. have subsequently abandoned. 
Can any man mistake the meaning — the meaning 
perfectly in accordance with the fact ? The preten- 
sion was advanced by the use of the famous elsewhere 
in our act of Congress, an act known to have been 
penned by Mr. Adams, who had previously occupied 
the ground covered by it, in his instructions to Mr. 
Rush. It was Mr. Adams who first advanced and 
abandoned this ground. The credit or the odium, 
which ever term belongs injustice to the act, attaches 
to Mr. Adams, and so Mr. McLane could only have 
nnderstrod it, and so must the Senator from Kentuc- 
ky, if he examines with a desire to understand it in 
the spirit of the author. 

There are considerations connected with Mr. V. B. 
if I deem it consistent with his honor, that I could 
present to those that hear me, that would not fail to 
make a deeper impression upon their minds. But I 
ask no rememhraince of his forbear a?ice ; no recol- 
lection of hts magnanimity ; I appeal to no one to 



APPENDIX. 141 

imitate his mildness and courtesy and kindness in 
his deportment here, nor to judge him as he judged 
his rivals for fame and power. I demand for him 
nothing but justice — harsh — harsh justice. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 
Lelier of the Republican members of the New- 
York Legislature, to the President. 

Albany, Feb. 9, 1832. 
To his Excellency Andrew Jackson, 

President of the United States. 

Sir — The undersigned in the performance of the 
duty with which they have been charged by the re- 
publican members of the legislature of the state of 
New-York, have the honor to transmit herewith, 
the proceedings of a meeting held by them in the 
Capitol of this State, on the 3d inst. In doing so, 
they cannot restrain the expression of the feelings of 
indignation with which they view the act to which 
these proceedings refer. 

A great majority of the citizens of this State have 
given repeated evidences of the high estimation in 
which they have held your administration of the af- 
fairs of the nation. The inflexible integrity which 
has marked every act of your public life — the mere 
than military couarge, with which the responsibili- 
ties of your high station have been assumed, and the 



142 APPENDIX. 

constant regard manifested by you to the purity of 
the Constitution, have strengthened their attachment 
to your person and your government; and they 
have not been regardless of the manner in which the 
splendid career of a military life, has been followed 
by the many signal blessings which your civil admi- 
nistration, has bestowed upon our country. 

This State witnessed with pride, the selection of 
Mr. Van Buren by your excellency as Secretary of 
State: Our citizens had given repeated evidences 
of their confidence in him. With the watchfulness 
becoming a free people, they had regarded his con- 
duct, in the various stations to which he had been 
called by the constituted authorities of the State. — 
They had witnessed his attachment under all circum- 
stances, to the principles of the democracy of the 
country, and they had then recently evinced the ex- 
tent of their confidence by elevating him to the 
highest office within their gift. They felt that your 
Excellency's removal of him to a wider sphere was 
an act of justice at once to his capacity, honesty and 
fidelity to the constitution, and to the character of 
this State and the feelings of its people. They cheer- 
fully acquiesced in that removal, and freely surren- 
dered their most distinguished fellow-citizen to your 
call,' because they recognized in it additional confir- 
mation of the high hopes they had imbibed of the 
fiharacter of your administration. They saw with 



APPENDIX. * 143 

undissembled pleasure, his efforts to aid your Excel- 
lency in your successful attempt to restore the gov- 
ernment to its purity; and when his withdrawal from 
the high station to which your partiality had exalted 
him, became necessary for the preservation of your 
peace against the attacks of those who were alike 
enemies to your person and your principles, they 
beheld in your continued confidence in him, irrefra- 
gable proof, that no combination could close the eyes 
of your Excellency, to the cause of your country, 
and no pesonal considerations arrest your efforts for 
the common welfare. They saw, that amid the as- 
saults made upon your principles by unfaithful ser- 
vants, the honor of our country was not lost to your 
view, and they felt, that the same ardent patriotism, 
which had been manifested on the walls of New 
Orleans, had been brought into the administration of 
the government. They saw and felt this, in the ef- 
fort made by your Excellency, to acquire by frank 
and honest negotiation, that for which we had war- 
red with Great Britain; which had been abandoned, 
if not surrendered, by subtle diplomacy; and upon 
which your Excellency, at least, had not been silent. 
The people of this whole country, felt indeed that 
their confidence in your Excellency was not mis- 
placed; for they saw and knew that no considera- 
tions of a private nature could for a moment affect 
your ardent desire to promoie the common weal. 



1^44 APPENDIX. 

It is true they were aware that there were citi- 
zens in this Union, who could justify and participate 
in this surrender of "free trade and sailor's rights," 
who could "calculate the value of the Union," and 
who could laugh at our calamities in a period of war 
and general distress. But they could not believe that 
such feelings could sway any branch of our hitherto 
unsullied government, and least of all, that they 
would ever dare combine to impede the attempt of 
your Excellency, to secure that for our country, for 
which we had expended millions of our money, and 
for which thousands of our citizens had laid down 
their lives. 

Your Excellency has ever appreciated the feelings 
of the people of this country, and it will not now be 
difficult for you to judge of those which pervade this 
whole community, against an act unprecedented in the 
annals of our country; which has impaired the hitherto 
exalted character of our national Senate^^ — which has 
insulted a Slate that yields to none in attachment to 
the Union; and which has directly attacked an ad- 
ministration that is founded deep in the aflfections of 
the people. 

The State of New-York, sir, is capable in itself, 
of avenging the indignity thus ofifered to its charac- 
ter, in the person of its favorite son. But we should 
be unmindful of our duty, if we failed in the ex- 
pression of our sympathy with your Excellency's 



APPENDIX. 



145 



feelings of mortification, at this degradation of the 
country you liave loved so well. Yet be assured, 
sir, that there is a redeeming spirit in the people, 
and that those whom we have the honor lo repre- 
sent, ardently desire an opportunity of exprt-ssing 
their undiminished confidence in an administration, 
which has exalted the character of our country, vvliich 
has restored the purity of the government, and lias 
shed abroad upon the whole nation the continued 
blessings of peace and prosperity. 

In the fervent hope, that your Excellency may 
yet be spared many years to bless and adorn the only 
free nation upon earth, we remain your sincere 
friends, and Very humble servants, 

N. P. TALLMADGE, THO. ARMSTRONG, 



LEVI BEARDSLEY, 
J. W. EDMONDS, 
CH. L. LIVINGSTON, 
G. OSTRANDER, 
J. W. WILLIAMSON, 
PETER WOOD, 
ED. POWELL, 



JOHN F. HUBBARD 
E. LITCHFIELD, 
WM. SKYMOUR, 
AARON REMER, 
JAS. HUGHSTON, 
WM. H. ANGEL. 



THE PRESIDENT'S REPLY. 

Washington, Feb. 23, 1832. 

Gentlemen : I have had the honor to receive your 

letter of ihe 9th inst. enclosing the resolutions passed 
13 



146 APPENDIX. 

*<at a meeting of the republican members of the Le- 
gislature of New York," on the rejection by the Se- 
nate of the United States of the nomination of Mar- 
tin Van Buren as Minister to England. 

I am profoundly grateful for the approbation which 
that distinguished body of my republican fellow-ci- 
tizens of New York have on that occasion, been 
pleased to express of the past administration of the 
affairs placed in my charge by the people of the 
United States, and for their generous offers of con- 
tinued confidence and support. Conscious of the 
rectitude of my intentions, my reliance in all the 
vicissitudes of my public life, has been upon the vir- 
tue and patriotism of an enlightened people. 

Their generous support has been my shield and 
my stay, when, in times past, the zealous per for- 
mance oj the arduous military duties allotted to 
me, though crowned ivith success, ivas sought to be 
made a ground of reproach ; and this manifesta- 
tion on the part of my fellow -citizens of the great 
State of New York, assures me that services not 
less faithful in the civil administration will not 
be less successfully defended. 

When such reliance fails the public servant, public 
liberty will be in danger: for if the people become 
insensible to indignities offered to those, who, with 
pure intentions devote themselves to the advance- 
ment of the safety and happiness of the countr}', 



APPENDIX. 147 

public virtue will cease to be respected, and public 
trusts will be sought for other rewards than those of 
patriotism. 

I CANNOT WITHHOLD MY ENTIRE CONCURRENCE 
WITH THE REPUBLICAN MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLA- 
TURE IN THEIR HIGH ESTIMATION OP THEIR EMI- 
NENT FELLOW CITIZEN, WHOM THEY HAVE SO GE- 
NEROUSLY COME FORWARD TO SUSTAIN. To THIS I 
WILL ADD THE ASSURANCE OP MY UNDIMINSHED RE- 
SPECT FOR HIS GREAT PUBLIC AND PRIVATE WORTH, 
AND MY FULL CONFIDENCE IN THE INTEGRITY OP 
HIS CHARACTER. 

In calling him to the department of state from the 
exalted station he then occupied by the sufirages of 
the people of his native state, I. was not influenced 
more by his ocknowledged talents and public ser- 
vices, than by the general wish and expectation of 
the Republican Party throughout the Union. The 
signal ability and success which distinguished his ad- 
ministration of the duties of that department, have 
fully justified the selection. 

I owe it to the late Secretary of State, to myself, 
and to the American people on this occasion to 
state, that as far as is known to me, he had no 
participation whatever in the occurrences relative 
to myself and the second officer of the government, 
or in the dissolution of the late cabinet ; and that 
there is no ground for imputing to him the having 



J48 APPENDIX. 

desired those removals from office which, in the 
discharge of my constitutional funclions, it was 
deemed proper to make. During his continuance 
in the cabinet, his exertions were directed to pro- 
duce harmony among its m,em,bers ; and ^e uni- 
formly ENDEAVORED TO SUSTAIN HIS COLLEAGUES. 

His final resignation was a sacrifice of offi- 
cial STATION TO WHAT HE DEEMED THE BEST INTE- 
ia:sTS OF THE COUNTRY. 

Mr. McLane, our then minister at London, hav- 
\n% previously asked permission to return, it was my 
a;ixious desire to commit all the important points re- 
muining open in our relations with Great Britain, to 
a successor in whose peculiar fitness and capacity I 
had equal confidence : and to my selection Mr. Van 
Buren yielded a reluctant assent. In urging upon 
him that sacrifice, I did not doubt that I was doing 
the best for the country, and acting in coincidence 
with the public wish ; and it certainly could not 
have been anticipated that, in the manner of suc- 
cessfully conducting and terminating an important 
complex negotiation, which had previously receiv- 
ed the sanction of both houses of congress, there 
would have been found motives for embarrassing the 
executive action, and for interrupting an important 
foreign negotiation. 

I can never be led to doubt, that in the instruc- 
tions under which that negotiation relative to the 



APPENDIX. _149 

trade with the British West Indies, was conducted 
and sxiccessfxilly concluded, the people of the Uni- 
ted States will find nothing either derogatory to 
the national dignity and honor, or improper for 
such an occasion. 

Those parts of the instructions which have been 
used to justify the rejection of Mr. Van Buren?s 
nomination hy the Senate of the United States, 
proceeded from my own suggestion ; were the re- 
sult of my own deliberate investigation and reflec- 
tion ; and now, as when they were dictated, ap- 
pear to me to be entirely proper and consonant to 
my public duty. 

I feel, gentlemen, that I am incapable of tar- 
nishing the pride or dignity of that country. y whose 
glory, both in the field and in the civil administra- 
tion it has been my object to elevate : and I feel 
assured that the exalted attitude which the Ameri- 
can people maintain abroad, and the prosperity 
with which they are blessed at home, fully attest 
that their honor and happiness have been unsullied 
in my hands. 

A participation in the trade with the British West 
India I-.lands, upon terms mutually satisfactory to the 
United States and Great Britain, had been an object 
of constant solicitude with our government from its 
origin. During the long and vexatious history of 
this subject, various propositions had been made with 
13*^ 



J50 APPENDIX. 

but partial success; and in the administration of my 
immediate predecessor, more than one attempt to 
adjust it had ended in a total interruption of the trade. 

The acknowledged importance of this branch of 
trade, the influence it was believed to have had in 
the elections which terminated in the change of the 
administration, and the general expectation on the part 
of the people, that renewed efforts, on frank and 
decisive grounds, might be successfully made to re- 
cover it, imposed upon me the duty of undertaking 
the task. 

Recentlv, however, Great Britain had more than 
once declined renewing the negotiation, and placed 
her refusal upon the objections which she thought 
proper to take to the manner of our previous nego- 
tiation, and to the claims which had at various limes 
been made upon the part of our government. 

The American government, notwithstanding, con- 
tinued its efforts to obtain a participation in the trade. 
It waived the claiais at first insisted upon, as well as 
the objection to the imposition by Great Britain of 
higher duties upon the produce of the United States 
when imported into the West Indies, than upon the 
produce of her own possessions, which objection had 
been taken in 1819 in a despatch of the then Secre- 
tary of State. 

A participation in the trade with the British West 
India Islands could not have been, at any time, de- 



APPENDIX. J5I 

manded as a right any more than in that to the Bri- 
tish European ports. In the posture of affairs already- 
adverted to, therefore, the Executive could ask no- 
thing more than to be permitted to engage in it upon 
the terms assented to by his predecessor, and which 
were the same as those previously offered by Great 
Britain herself. Even these had been denied to the 
late administration, and for reasons arising from the 
views entertained by the British government of our 
conduct in the past negotiation. 

It was foreseen that this refusal might be repeated 
and on the same grounds. When it became the duty 
of the Executive, rather than disappoint the expecta- 
tions of the people and wholly abandon the trade, to 
continue the application, it was proper to meet the 
objection to the past acts of the American adminis- 
tration, which objection, as had been foieseen, was 
actually made and for some time insisted upon. 

It is undoubtedly the duty of all to sustain, by an 
undivided and patriotic front, the action of the con- 
stituted authorities towards foreign nations : and this 
duty requires, that during the continuance of an ad- 
ministration in office, nothing should be done to em- 
barrass the Executive intercourse in its foreign poli- 
cy, unless upon a conviction that it is erroneous. A 
thorough change in the administration, however, 
raises up other authorities of equal dignity, and 
equally entitled to respect: and an open adoption of 



152 APPENDIX. 

a different course implies nc separation of the diffe- 
rent parts of the government: nor does an admission 
of the inexpediency or impracticahility of previous 
demands imply any want of respect for those who 
may have maintained them. 

To defend the claims, or pretensions, as they 
had been rndiscrimmately called, on either side, in 
the previous correspondence, lohich had been for a 
time urged by the late administratioii, y:oiild have 
been to defend, what that administration by waiv- 
ing them, liad admitted to be untenable, and if 
that which had been by them conceded to be inex- 
pedient, could not be sustained as proper, I perceive 
nothing derogatory, and surely nothing wrong, in 
conducting the negotiation upon the comm.on and 
establislied principle, that in a, change of ad minis- 
Iration there may be a corresponding change in the 
policy and counsels of the government. This prin- 
ciple exii-ts and is acted upon, in the diplomatic and 
public transactions of all nations. The fact of its 
existence in the recent change of the administration 
of the American government, was as notorious as the 
circulation of the American press could make it ; 
and while its influence upon the policy of foreign na- 
tions was both natural and reasonable, it was proper, 
according to my sense of duty, frankly to avow it, if 
the interests of the people of the United States should 
so require. 



APPENDIX. 153 

Such was the motive, and such and nothing more, 
is the true import of the instructions, taken as a whole, 
which I directedd to be given to our minister at Lon- 
don, and which neither expressed nor implied con- 
demnation of the government of the United States, 
nor of the late administration, further than had been 
implied by their own acts of admission. 

I could not reconcile it to my sense of public duty, 
or of the national dignity, that the United States 
should suffer continued injury or injustice, because a 
former administration had insisted upon terms which 
it had subsequently waived, or had failed seasonably 
to accept an offer which it had afterwards been wil- 
ling to embrace. The conduct of previous adminis- 
trations was not to be discussed either for censure or 
defence ; and only in case ^' the omissions of this 
government to accept of the terms proposed when 
heretofore offered,^' should "be urged as an objec- 
tion now," it was made the duty of the minister " to 
make the British government sensible of the injus- 
tice and inexpediency of such a course." 

Both the right and the propriety of setting up the 
past acts of previous administrations to justify the 
exclusion of the United States from a trade allowed 
to all other nations, was distinctly denied, and the 
instructions authorised the minister to state that such 
a course towards the United States «< under existing 
circumstances, would be unjust in itself, and could 



154 APPENDIX, 

not fail to excite the deepest sensibility — the tone of 
feeling which a course so unwise and untenable is 
calculated to produce, would doubtless be greatly ag- 
gravated by the consciousness that Great Britain has, 
by orders in council, opened her colonial ports to 
Russia and France, notwithstanding a similar omis- 
sion on their part to accept the terms offered by the 
act of the 5th July, 1825 ;" — he was told that *' he 
could not press this view of the subject too earnestly 
upon the consideration of the British ministry ;" and 
the prejudicial influence of a course on the part of the 
British Government so unwise and unjust upon the 
future relations of the two countries, was clearly an- 
nounced in the declaration that " it has bearings and 
relations that reach beyond the immediate question 
under discussion.'' 

If the British government should decline an ar- 
rangement **on the ground of a change of opinion, 
or in order to promote her own interests," a prompt 
avowal of that purpose was demanded ; but if they 
should not be prepared to take that ground, *' but 
suffer themselves to desire that the United States 
should, in expiation of supposed past encroachments, 
be driven to the necessity of retracing their legisla- 
tive steps, without knowledge of its effect, and whol- 
ly dependent upon the indulgence of Great Britain ;" 
they were to be made sensible of the impracticability 
of that course, and to be taught to expect such mea* 



APPENDIX. 155 

sures on our part as would vindicate our national in- 
terest and lionor. To announce distinctly to Great 
Britain that we would not submit to a continued in- 
justice, on the ground of any objection to the past 
conduct of the American government, whether it 
were right or wrong, was the obvious import of the 
whole instructions. 

If the Executive had caused it to be stated to 
Great Britain, that finding his predecessors to have 
been in error, as was implied by subsequently waiv- 
ing the terms they had advocated, and had, in expia- 
tion of those errors, abandoned the trade to the plea- 
sure of the British Government, the interests of the 
United Stales would have suffered, and their honor 
been reproaclied ; but in excluding such considera- 
tions, as inappropriate and unjust, and in clearly 
avowing his purprse not to submit to that treatment, 
he hoped to promote the interests of his fellow-citi- 
zens, and sustain the honor and dignity of the coun- 
try. 

In all this, gentlemen, I have the approbation of 
my judgment and conscience. Acting upon the 
principle, early announced, of asking nothing but 
what is right, and submitting to nothing that is 
wrong, I asked that only of which the justice could 
not be denied. I asked a participation in the trade, 
upon terms just to the United States, and mutually 
advantageous to both countries. I directed a simple 



^56 APPENDIX. 

and distinct proposition in conformity with these 
principles, to be submittted to the British govern- 
ment, and, resolving to be contented with nothing 
less, I ultimately arranged the trade upon the basis 
of that proposition, without retraction, modification, 
or change. — Jf the national honor had not been 
thought tarnished by retracing our steps ^ by claim- 
ing more and nltimately consenting to take less, 
and in fact obtaining nothing ; I feel assured, that 
in requiring that which my ])redecessors had con- 
ceded to be enough,- and obtaining all that was de- 
manded, my countrymen will see no stain upon their 
dignity, their pride, or their honor. 

If I required greater satisfaction than I derive from 
a review of this subject, I shall find it in the grati- 
tude I feel for the success which has crowned my 
efforts. I shall always possess the gratifying recol- 
lection, that I have not disappointed the expecta 
tions of my countrymen, who, under an arrange- 
ment depending for its permanence upon our own 
wisdom, are participating in a valuable trade upon 
terms more advantageous than those which the illus- 
trious Father of his Coimtry was willing to accept ; 
upon terms as favorable as those which regulate tlie 
trade under our conventions with Graat Britain, and 
which have been sought without success from the 
earliest periods of our history. 

I pray you, gentlemen, to present to the republi- 



APPENDIX. 157 

can members of the legislature of New York, and to 
accept for your:^elves individually, the a.>surance of 
my highest regard and consideration. 

ANDREW JACKSON. 

Messrs. N. P. Tallmadge, Thonius Arm- 
strong, I.evi neardsley, John F Hub- 
bard, J. W. Edmonds, Chas. L. I/i- 
vingston, Gideon Ostrander, John M. 
Wdliamson, Peter Wood, E Howell, 
Elisha Litchfield. Willi im Seymour, 
Aaron Remer, Jus. Kug'.iston, Wm. 
H. An^el. 

Address of Mr. Van Buren, Vice President oj 
the United Slates, on tukinu; the Chair of the 
Senate, as its presiding officer, on Monday, De- 
cember !(>, IS 33. 

Senators: On entering on the duties of the sta- 
tion to which I have been called by the People, de- 
ference to you and justice to myself require that I 
should forestall expectations which might otherwise 
be disappointed. Although for many years hereto- 
fore a member of the Senate, I regret that I should 
not have acquired that knowledge of the particular 
order ofits proceedings which might naturally be ex- 
pected. Unfortunately for me, in respect to my pre- 
sent condition, I ever found those at hand who had 
more correctly appreciated this important branch of 
their duties, and on whose opinions, as to points of 
14 



j[58 APPENDnt. 

order, I could at all times safely rely. This remiss- 
ness will, doubtless, for a season, cause me no small 
degree of embarrassment. So far, however, as un- 
remitting exertions on my part, and proper respect 
for the advice of those who are better informed than 
myself, can avail, this deficiency will be remedied as 
speedily as possible; and I feel persuaded that the 
Senate, in the mean time, will extend to me a con- 
siderate indulgence. 

But however wanting I may be, for the time, in a 
thorough knowledge of the technical duties of the 
Chair, I entertain, I humbly hope, a deep and so- 
lemn conviction of its high moral obligations. I am 
well aware that he who occupies it, is bound to cher- 
ish towards the members of the body over which 
he presides, no other feeling than those of justice 
and courtesy — to regard them all as standing upon 
an honorable equality — to apply the rules establish- 
ed by themselves, for their own government, with 
strict impartiality — and to use whatever authority 
he possesses in the manner best calculated to protect 
the rights, to respect the feelings, and to guard the 
reputations of all who may be affected by its ex- 
ercise. 

It is no disparagement to any other branch of the 
Government to say, that there is none on which the 
Constitution devolves such extensive powers as it 
does upon the Senate. There is scarcely an exercise 



APPENDIX. 159 

of constitutional authority in which it does not me- 
diately or immediately participate; it forms an im- 
portant and, in some respects, an indispensible part 
of each of the three great departments, Executive, 
Legislative, and Judicial; and is moreover, the body 
in which is made effectual, that share of power in 
the Federal organization so wisely allowed to the re- 
spective State sovereignties. 

Invested with such august powers, so judiciously 
restricted, and so sagely adapted to the purposes of 
good government, it is no wonder that the Senate is 
regarded by the people of the United States, as one 
of the best features, in what they at least consider to 
be the the wisest, the freest, and happiest political 
system in the world. In fervent wishes that it may 
long continue to be so regarded, and in a conviction 
of the importance of order, propriety, and regularity 
in its proceedings, we must all concur. It shall be 
an object of my highest ambition, Senators, to join 
with you, as far as in me lies, in eflfecting those de- 
sirable objects; and in endeavoring to realize the ex- 
pectation formed of this body at the adoption of the 
Constitution, and ever since confidently cherished, 
that it would exercise the most efficient influence in 
upholding the Federal system, and in perpetuating 
what is at once the foundation and the safeguard of 
oar country's welfare, the Union of the States. 



IQQ APPENDIX. 

MR. BENTON'S LETTER. 
To Maj. Gen. Davis, of the State of Mississifpiy 
declining Ike nomination of the Convention of 
that State for the Vice Presidency ; defending the 
nnminaiion of Mr. Van Burenfor the Presiden- 
cy ; and recommending harmony, concert, and 
11722071, to the democratic party of the U. States. 

Washington City, January 1st, 1835. 
Dear Sir, — We have learned that you have de- 
ch'ned permitting your name to be used as a candi- 
date for the Vice-Presidency of the TTniled Slates, 
and that you have addressed a letter to that effect, 
some time since, to the Committee of the State Con- 
vention of Mississippi, by whom you were nomi- 
nated for that high office. It will be a considerable 
time before your determination, communicated 
through that channel, can be known to the people of 
the United States; we therefore request the favor of 
a copy of your letter, if you retained one, for pub- 
lication at this place, in order that your friends else- 
where, as well as in Mississippi, may have an early 
opportunity of turning their attention to some other 
fiuitabie person. Yours, with great respect, 
ROBT. T. LYTLE, (ofOhio,) 
HENRY HUBBARD, (of New Hampshire,) 
RATLIFF BOON, (of Indiana,) 
H. A. MUHLENBERG, (of Pennsylvania.) 
Honorable Thos. H. Bknton. 



APPENDIX. IQl 

Washington City, January 2d, 1835. 
Gentlemen, — I herewith send you a copy of my 
letter, declining the nomination of the Mississippi 
State Convention, for the Vice-Presidency of the 
United States. Fairness towards my political friends 
in every part of the Union, required me to let them 
know at once what my determination was; and this 
I have done in many private letters, and in all the 
conversations which I have held upon the subject. — 
The nomination in Mississippi was the first one 
which came from a Stale Convention, and therefore 
the first one which seemed to me to justify a public 
letter, and to present the question in such a form as 
would save me from the ridicule of declining what no 
State had offered. The letter to Mississippi was in- 
tended for publication, to save my friends any fur- 
ther trouble on my account. It was expected to 
reach, in its circuit, my friends in every quarter ; 
and as you sug^^est that it might be a considerable 
time before it could return from the State of Missis- 
sippi through the newspapers, and that in the mean- 
time, my friends elsewhere, might wish earlier in- 
formation, that they might turn their attention to 
some other person, I cheerfully comply with your 
request, and furnish the copy for publication here. 
Yours, respectfully, 

THOMAS H. BENTON. 
Messrs. B. T. Lytle, H. Hubbard, R. Boon, 
and H, Ji, Muhlenberg. 14* 



IQ2 APPENDIX. 

MR. BENTON'S LETTER. 

Washington City, Dec. 1 6th, 1834. 

Dear Sir: Your kind letter of the 8th ultimo has 
been duly received, and I take great pleasure in re- 
turning you my thanks for the friendship you have 
shown me, and which I shall he happy to acknow- 
ledge by acts, rather than words, whenever an op- 
portunity shall occur. 

The rccommendalion for the Vice-Presidency of 
the United States, which the Democratic Convention 
of your State has done me the honor to make, is, in 
the highest degree, flattering and honorable to me, 
and commands the expression of my deepest grati- 
tude ; but, justice to myself, and to our political 
friends, requires me to say at once, and with the can- 
dor and decision which rejects all disguise, and pal- 
ters with no retraction, that I cannot consent to go 
upon the list of candidates for the eminent office for 
which I have been proposed. 

I consider the ensuing election for President, and 
Vice-President, as one among the most important 
that ever took place in our country ; ranking with 
that of ISOO, when the democratic principle first 
trium.phed in the person of Mr. Jefl'erson, and with 
the two elections of 1828, and 1S32, when the same 
principle again triumphed in the person of General 
Jackson ; and I should look upon all the advantages 
recovered for the constitution, and the people, in 



APPENDIX. IG3 

these two last triumphs, as lost and gone, unless the 
democracy of the Union shall again triumph in the 
election of 1836. To succeed in that election, will 
require the most perfect harmony and union among 
ourselves. To secure this union and harmony, we 
must have as few aspirants for the offices of President, 
and Vice President, as possible ; and to diminish the 
number of these aspirants, I, for one, shall refuse to 
go upon the list: and will remain in the ranks of the 
voters, ready to support the cause of democracy, by 
supporting the election of the candidates which shall 
be selected by a general convention of the democra- 
tic party. 

But, while respectfully declining, for myself, the 
highly honorable and flattering recommendation of 
your convention, I take a particular pleasure in ex- 
pressing the gratification which I feel, at seeing the 
nomination which you have made in favor of Mr. 
Van Buren. I have known that gentleman long, 
and intimately. We entered the Senate of the 
United States together, thirteen years ago, sat six 
years in seats next to each other, were always per- 
sonally friendly, generally acted together on leading 
subjects, and always interchanged communications, 
and reciprocated confidence ; and thus, occupying a 
position to give me an opportunity of becoming tho- 
roughly acquainted with his principles, and charac- 
ter, the result of the whole has been, that I have long 



164 APPENDIX. 

since considered him, and so indicated him to my 
friends, as the most fit, and suitable person to fill the 
presidential chair after the expiration of President 
Jackson's second term. In political principles he is 
thoroughly democratic, and comes as near the Jeffer- 
sonian standard as any statesman now on the stage of 
public life. In abilities, experience, and business 
habits, he is beyond the reach of cavil or dispute. — 
Personally, he is inattackable ; for the whole volume 
of his private life contains not a single act which re- 
quires explanation, or defence. In constitutional 
temperament he is peculiarly adapted to the station, 
and the times; for no human being could be more 
free from every taint of envy, malignity, or revenge, 
or, could possess, in a more eminent degree, that 
happy conjunction of firmness of purpose, with sua- 
vity of manners, which contributes so much to the 
successful administration of public affairs, and is so 
essential, and becoming, in a high public functionary. 
The State from which he comes, and of which, suc- 
cessive elections for two and twenty years prove him 
to be the favorite son, is also to be taken into the ac- 
count in the list of his recommendations ; that great 
State which, in the eventful struggle of ISOO, turned 
the scales of the presidential election in favor of 
Mr. Jefferson, — whicli has supported every demo- 
cratic administration from that day to this ; a State 
which now numbers two millions of inhabitants, — 



APPENDIX. 165 

gives forty-two votes in the presidential election, — 
and never saw one of her own sons exalted to the pre- 
sidential office. 

But what has he done ? What has Mr. Van Biireii 
done, that he should he elected President ? This is 
liie inquiry, as flippantly, as i<>;norantly put hy those 
who would veil, or disparage the merits of this 
gentleman ; when it would be much more regular 
and pertinent to ask, what has such a man as this 
done, that he should not be made President? — But, 
to answer the inquir}^ as put: It iriight perhaps be 
sufficient, so far at least as the comparative merits of 
competitors are concerned, to point to his course in 
the Senate of the United States during the eight 
years tiiat he sat in that body ; and to his conduct 
since in the high offices to which he has been call- 
ed by his native State, by President Jackson, and by 
the American people. This might be sufficient be- 
tween Mr. Van Buren and others ; but it would not 
be sufficient for himself. Justice to him would re- 
quire an answer to go further back, — to the war of 
1S12, when he was a member of the New York Se- 
nate ; when the fate of Mr. Madison's administra- 
tion, and of the Union itself, depended upon the 
conduct of that great State — great in men and means, 
and greater in position, a frontier to New England, 
and to Canada — to British arms and Hartford Con- 
vention treason ; and when that conduct, to the dis- 



166 APPENDIX. 

may of every patiotic bosom, was seen to bang, for 
nearly two years, in the doubtful scales of suspense. 
The federalists had the majority in the House of 
Representatives ; the democracy had the Senate and 
the Governor; and for two successive sessions no 
measure could be adopted in support of the war. — 
Every aid proposed by the Governor and Senate, 
was rejected by the House of Representatives. — 
Every State paper issued by one, was answered by 
the other. Continual disagreements took place ; in- 
numerable conferences were had ; the Hall of the 
House of Representatives was the scene of contesta- 
tion ; and every conference was a public exhibition 
of parliamentary conflict — a public trial of intellec- 
tual digladiation, in which each side, represented by 
committees of its ablest men, and in the presence of 
both houses, and of assembled multitudes, exerted 
itself to the utmost to justify itself, and to put the 
other in the wrong, to operate upon public opmion, 
govern the impending elections, and acquire the as- 
cendency in the ensuing legislature. Mr. Van Bu- 
ren, then a young man, had just entered the Senate 
at the comn^.encement of this extraordinary struggle. 
He entered it, November 1812 ; and had just dis- 
tinguished himself in the opposition of his county to 
the first national bank charter — in the support of 
Vice President Clinton for giving the casting vote 
against it — and in his noble support of Governor 



APPENDIX. 



167 



Tompkins, for his Roman energy in proroguing the 
General Assembly, (April, 1812,) which could not 
otherwise be prevented from receiving and embody- 
ing the transmigratory soul of ihat defunct institu- 
tion, and giving it a new existence, in a new place, 
under an altered name and modified form. He was 
politically born out of this conflict, and came into the 
legislature against the bank, and for the war. He 
was the man which the occasion required ; the ready 
writer — prompt debater — judicious counsellor ; cour- 
teous in manners — fii'm in purpose — inflexible in 
principles. He contrived the measures — brought 
forward the bills and reports — delivered the speeches 
— and drew the State papers, (especially the power- 
ful address to the republican voters of the State,) 
which eventually vanquished the federal party, turn- 
ed the doubtful scales, and gave the elections of 
April, ISl 4, to the friends and supporters of Madi- 
son and the war; an event, the intelligence of which 
was received at Washington with an exultation only 
inferior to that with which was received the news of 
the victory of New Orleans. The new legislature, 
now democratic in both branches, was quickly con- 
vened by Governor Tompkins ; and Mr. Van Buren 
had the honor to bring forward, and carry through, 
amidst the applauses of patriots, and the denunciation 
of the anti-war party, the most energetic war mea- 
sure ever adopted in our America — the classification 



168 APPENDIX. 

bill, as he called it, the conscription biU, as they 
called it. By this bill, ihe provisions of whici), by 
a new and summary process, were so contrived as to 
act upon property, as well as upon persons, an army 
of twelve thousand slate troops were immediately to 
be raised ; to serve for two years, and to be placed 
at the disposition of the General Government, The 
peace which was signed in the last days of Decern ler, 
1814, rendered this jj;reat measure of New York in- 
operative ; but its merit was acknowledged by all 
patriots at the time ; the princijde of it was adopted 
by Mr. Madison's administration ; recommended by 
the Secretary at War, Mr. Moiiroe, to the Congress 
of the United States, and found by that body too 
energetic to be passed. To complete his course in 
support of the war, and to crown his meritorious la- 
bors to bring it to a happy close,, it became Mr. Van 
Buren's foitune to draw up the vote of thanks of the 
greatest State of the Union, to the greatest General 
which the war had produced — ** the thanks of 
the New York le^idaturt to Major General Jack- 
son, his gallant officers and troops, for theli won- 
derfiily and heroic victory, in defence of ihe g7^and 
emporiinn of the fVest.'^ Such was the appropriate 
conclusion to his patriotic services in support of the 
war: services, to be sure, not rivalling in splendor 
the heroic achievements of victorious arms; but ser* 
vicesy neverthelesS| both honorable, and meritorious 



APPENDIX. 169 

in their place ; and without which battles cannot be 
fought, victories cannot be won, nor countries be 
saved. Martial renown, it is true, he did not ac- 
quire, nor attempt ; but the want of that fascination 
to his name can hardly be objected to him, in these 
days, when the political ascendency of military 
chieftains is so pathetically dej)lored, and when the 
entire perils of the republic are supposed to be com 
pressed into the single danger of a military despotism. 
Such is the answer, in brief, and in part, to the 
flippant inquiry. What has he done? 

The vole in the Senate, for the tariff of 182S, has 
sometimes been objected to Mr. Van Buren; but 
with how much ignorance of the truth, let facts at- 
test. 

He was the first eminent member of Congress, 
north of the Potomac, to open the war, at the right 
point, upon that tariff of 1S2S, then undergoing the 
process of incubation through the instrumentality of 
a Convention to sit a Harrisburg. His speech at 
Albany, in July, 1827, opetdy characterized that 
measure as a political manoeuvre to influence the im- 
pending presidential election; and the graphic expres- 
sion, "« measiiye proceeding more from the closet 
of the politician than from the workshop of the 
MANUFACTURER," SO opjiortunelv and felicilously 
used in that speech, soon became the opinion of the 
public, and subsequentlyreceived the impress of veri- 

15 



ITO APPENDIX. 

fication from the abandonment, and the manner of 
abandoning, of the whole fabric of the high tariff 
policy. Failing to carry any body into the Presi- 
dential chair, its doom pronounced by the election 
of Jackson and Van Buren,* it was abandoned, as it 
had been created, upon a political calculation; and 
expired under a fiat emanating, not from the vjork- 
shop of the manufacturer, but from the closet of 
the politician, — True, that Mr. Van Buren voted 
for the tariff of IS28, notwithstanding his spepch of 
1827; but, equally true, that he voted under instruc- 
tions from his State Legislature, and in obedience to 
the great democratic principle {demos, the people, 
krateo, to govern) which has always formed a distin- 
guished feature, and a dividing land-mark, between 
the two great political parties which, under whatso- 
ever name, have always existed, and still exist, in 
our country. — Sitting in the chair next to him at the 
time of that vote, voting as he did, and upon the 
same principle; interchanging opinions without re- 
serve, or disguise, it comes within the perception of 
my own senses to know that he felt great repugnance 
to the provisions of that tariff act of '2S, and voted 
for it, as I did, in obedience to a principle which we 
both hold sacred. 

No public man, since the da)^s of Mr. Jefferson 
has been pursued with more bitterness than Mr. Van 

• Over the high tariff champions. Clay and Sergeant. 



APPENDIX. 171 

Buren; none, not excepting Mr. Jefferson himself, 
has ever had to withstand the combined assaults 
of so many, and such formidable powers. His prom- 
inent position, in relation to the next Presidency, 
has drawn upon him the general attack of other can- 
didates, — themselves as well as their friends; for in 
these days, (how different from former times!) candi- 
dates for the Presidency are seen to take the field for 
themselves, — banging away at their competitors, — 
sounding the notes of their own applause, — and deal- 
ing in the tricks, and cant, of veteran cross-road, or 
alehouse, electioneerers. His old opposition, and 
early declaration (1826) against the Bank of the 
United States, has brought upon him the pervading 
vengeance of that powerful institution; and subjected 
him to the vicarious vituperation of subaltern assail- 
ants, inflamed with a wrath, not their own, in what- 
soever spot that terrific institution maintains a branch, 
or a press, retains an adherent, or holds a debtor. 
(It was under the stimulus, and predictions of the 
Bank press, that Mr. Van Buren was rejected by 
the Senate in 1S32.) Yet in all this combination of 
powers against him, and in all these unrelenting- at- 
tacks, there is no specification of misconduct. All 
is vague, general, indefinite, mysterious. Mr. Craw- 
ford, the most open, direct, and palpable of public 
men, was run down upon the empty cry of ''giant 
at intrigue! ^^ a second edition of that cry, now 



172 APPENDIX. 

stereotyped for harder use, is expected to perform 
the same service upon Mr. Van Buren; while the 
originators and repeaters t)f the cry, in both instan- 
ces, have found it equally impossible to specif}' a 
case of intrigue in the life of one, or the other, of 
these gentlemen. 

Safety fund banks, is another of those cries raised 
against him; as if there was any thing in the system 
of those banks to make the banking system worse; 
or, as if the money, and politics of these safety fund 
banks, were at the service of Mr. Van Buren. On 
the contrary, it is not even pretended by his ene- 
mies that he owns a single dollar of stock in any 
one of these banks! and I have been frequently in- 
formed, from sources entitled to my confidence, that 
he does not own a dollar of interest in any bank in 
the world! that he has wholly abstained from becom- 
ing the owner of any bank stock, or taking an in- 
terest in any company, incorporated by the Legisla- 
ture, since he first became a member of that body, 
above two-and-twenty years ago. And as for the 
politics of the safety fund banks, it has been recent- 
ly and authentically shown that a vast majority of 
them are under the control of his most determined 
and active political opponents. 

No public man has been more opposed to the ex- 
tension of the banking system than Mr. Van Buren. 
The journals of the New-York Legislature show 



APPENDIX. 173 

that the many years during which he was a promi- 
nent member of that body, he exerted himself in a 
continued and zealous opposition to the increase of 
banks; and, upon his elevation to the Chief Magis- 
tracy of the State, finding the system of banks so 
incorporated with the business and interests of the 
People, as to render its abolishment impossible, he 
turned his attention to its improvement, and to the es- 
tablishment of such guards against fraudulent, or even 
unfortunate bankruptcy, as would, under all circum- 
stances, protect the holders of notes against loss. The 
safety fund system was the result of views of this kind; 
and if its complete success hitherto (for no bank has 
failed under it,) and the continued support and con- 
fidence of the representatives of two millions of 
people, are not sufficient to attest its efficacy, there 
is one consideration at least, which should operate 
60 far in its favor as to save it from the sneers of 
those who cannot tell what the safety fund system is; 
and that is, the perfect ease and composure with 
which the whole of these banks rode out the storm 
of Senatorial and United States Bank assault, panic, 
and pressure, upon them last winter! This consid- 
eration should save Mr. Van Buren from the censure 
of some people, if it cannot attract their applause. 
For the rest, he is a real hard money man ; opposed 
to the paper system— in favor of a national currency 
of gold— in favor of an adequate silver currency for 
15* 



174 APPENDIX. 

common use — against the small note currency — and 
in favor of confining bank notes to their appropriate 
sphere and original function, that of large notes for 
large transactions, and mercantile operations. 

Non-committal, is another of the flippant phrases, 
got by rote, and parroted against Mr. Van Buren. 
He never commits himself, say these veracious ob- 
servers! he never shows his hand, till he sees which 
way the game is going! Is this true? Is their any 
foundation for it? On the contray, is it not contra- 
dicted by public and notorious facts? by the uniform 
tenor of his entire public life for near a quarter of a 
century? To repeat nothing of what has been said of 
his opposition to the first Bank of the United States, 
his support of Vice President Clinton for giving the 
casting vote against the recharter of that institution, 
his support of Governor Tompkins, in the extraordi- 
nary measure of proroguing the New- York Legisla- 
ture, to prevent the metempsychosis of the Bank, 
and its revivification, in the City of New-York; to 
repeat nothing of all this, and of his undaunted and 
brilliant support of the war, from its beginning to its 
end, I shall refer only to what has happened in my 
own time, and under my own eyes. His firm, and 
devoted, support of Mr. Crawford, in the contest of 
1824, when that eminent citizen, prostrate with dis- 
ease, and inhumanly assailed, seemed to be doomed 
to inevitable defeatj was that non-committal? His 



APPENDIX. 175 

early espousal of General Jackson's cause, after the 
election in the House of Representatives, in Februa- 
ry, 1825, and his steadfast opposition to Mr. Adams's 
administration; was that non-committal? His prom- 
inent stand against the Panama Mission, when that 
mission was believed to be irresistibly popular, and 
was pressed upon the Senate to crush the opposition 
members; was that also a wily piece of non-commit- 
tal policy? His declaration against the Bank of the 
United States in the year 1826; was that the conduct 
of a man waiting to see the issue before he could 
take his side? The removal of the deposits, and the 
panic scene of last winter, in which so many gave 
way, and so many others folded their arms until the 
struggle was over, while Mr. Van Buren, both by his 
own conduct, and that of his friends, gave an undaun- 
ted support to that masterly stroke of the President; 
is this also to be called a non-committal line of eon- 
duct, and the evidence of a temper that sees the issue 
before it decides? The fact is, this ridculous and 
nonsensical charge, is so unfounded and absurd, so 
easily refuted, and not only refuted, but turned to the 
honor and advantage of Mr. Van Buren, that his friends 
might have run the risk of being suspected of having 
invented it themselves, and put it into circulation, just 
to give some others of his friends a brilliant opportuni- 
ty of emblazoning his merits! were it not that thejjlind 
enmity of his competitors has put the accusation upon 



176 APPENDIX. 

record, and enabled his friends to exculpate them- 
selves, and to prove home the original charge against 
his undisputed opponents. 

For one thing Mr. Van Buren has reason to be 
thankful to his enemies; it is, for having began the 
war upon him so soon! There is time enough yet for 
truth and justice to do their office, and to dispel 
every cloud of prejudice which the jealously of ri- 
vals, the vengeance of the Bank, and the ignorance 
of dupes, has hung over his name. 

Union, harmony, self-denial, concession — every 
thing for the cause, nothing for men — should be the 
watchword, and motto of the democratic party. 

Disconnected from the election — a voter, and not 
a candidate — having no object in view but to preserve 
the union of the democratic party, and to prevent 
the administration of the public affairs from relapsing 
into hands that would undo every thing ; hands that 
would destroy every limit to the constitution, by 
latitudinous constructions — which would replunge 
the country into debt and taxes, by the reckless, wil- 
ful, systematic, ungovernable, headlong, stubborn, 
support of every wasteful and extravagant expendi- 
ture — that would re-deliver the country into the 
hands of an institution which has proved the scourge 
of the people — and which would instantly revive the 
dominion of paper money, by arresting the progress 
of the gold and silver currency : having no object in 



APPENDIX. 177 

view but to prevent these calamities, I may be per- 
milted to say a word, without incurring the imputa- 
tion of speaking from interested motives, on the vital 
point of union in the democratic party. 

The obligation upon good men to unite, when bad 
men combine, is as clear in politics as it is in morals. 
Fidelity to this obligation has, heretofore, saved the 
republic, and was never more indispensable to its 
safety than at the present moment. The efforts made 
under the elder Adams, above thirty years ago, to 
subvert the principles of our Government, produced 
a union of the productive and burthen-hearing 
classes, in every quarter of the republic. Planters, 
farmers, laborers, mechanics, (with a slight infusion 
from the commercial and professional interests,) 
whether on this side or that of the Potomac, whether 
east or west of the Alleghany mountains, stood to- 
gether upon the principle of common right, and the 
sense of common danger, and effected that first great 
union of the democratic party which achieved the 
civil revolution of ISOO, arrested the downward 
course of the Government, and turned back the na- 
tional administration to its republican principles, and 
economical habits. 

The sagacious mind of Mr. Jefferson well discern- 
ed, in the homogeneous elements of which this united 
party was composed, the appropriate materials for a 
republican government ; and to the permanent con- 



178 APPENDIX. 

junction of these elements, he constantly looked for 
the only insurmountable barrier to the approaches 
of oligarchy and aristocracy. Actuated by a zeal 
which has never been excelled, for the success and 
perpetuity of the democratic cause, he labored assi- 
duously in his high office, and subsequent retirement, 
in his conversations and letters, to cement, sustain, 
and perpetuate a party, on the union and indivisi- 
bility of which he solely relied for the preservation 
of our republic. It was the political power result- 
ing from this auspicious union, (to say nothing of 
several other occasions,) which carried us safely and 
triumphantly through the late war ; enabling the 
Government to withstand, on one hand, the paraliz- 
ing machinations of a disaffected aristocracy, and to 
repel on the other, the hostile attacks of a great na- 
tion. 

The first relaxation of the ties which bound to- 
gether the democracy of the North and South, East 
and West, was followed by the restoration to power 
of federal men, and the re-appearance in the admini- 
stration of federal doctrines, and federal measures. — 
The younger Mr. Adams crept into power through 
the first breach that was made in the democratic 
ranks ; and immediately proclaimed the fundamental 
principles which lie at the bottom of ancient federa- 
lism, and modern whiggism — ^^ the reprecentative 
not to be palsied by the will of his constituents;^^ — 



APPENDIX. 179 

^f constitutional' scruples to be solved in practical 
blessings;^^ — two doctrines, one of which would 
leave the people without representatives, and the 
other would leave the Government without a consti- 
tution. The ultra federalism of this gentleman's ad- 
ministration, fortunately for the country, led to the 
re-union of those homogeneous elements, by the first 
union of which the elder Mr. Adams had been eject- 
ed from power ; and this re-union immediately pro- 
duced a second civil revolution not less vital to the 
republic than the first one, of ISOO; a revolution to 
which we are indebted for the election of a President 
who has turned back the Government, so far as in 
his power lies, to the principles of the constitution, 
and to the practice of economy — who has directed 
the action of the Government to patriotic objects — 
saved the people from the cruel dominion of a heart- 
less moneyed power — withstood the combined as- 
saults of the bank, and its allied Statesmen— and 
frustrated a conspiracy against the liberty and the 
property of the people, but little less atrocious in its 
design, and little less disastrous in its intended ef- 
fects, than that conspiracy from which Cicero deli- 
vered the Roman people, and for the frustration of 
which he was hailed by Cato, in the assembled pre- 
sence of all Rome, with the glorious appellation of 
Pater P^/W«— Father of his country. 

The democracy of the four quarters of the union, 



|g0 APPENDIX. 

now united, victorious, happy and secure, under the 
administration- of President Jackson; shall it disband, 
and fall to pieces the instant that great man retires ? 
This is what federalism hopes, foretels, promotes, 
intrigues, prays, and pants for. Shall this be — and 
through whose fault? Shall sectional prejudices, 
lust of power, contention for office, (that bane of 
freedom;) shall personal preferences, so amiable in 
private life, so w^eak in politics ; shall these small 
causes — these Lilliputian tactics — be suffered to work 
the disruption of the democratic union ; to separate 
the republican of the South and West, from his bro- 
ther of the North and East? and, in that separation, 
to make a new opening for the second restoration 
of federalism, (under lis alius dictus of whiggism;) 
and the permanent enslavement of the producing, 
and bur I hen-hearing classes of the community ? 

Bear with me if! speak without disguise, and say, 
if these things happen, it must be through the fault 
of the South and West. 

Here are the facts : 

It has so happened that, although every Southern 
President (four in number) and the only Western 
one (through his two terms) has received the warm 
support of Northern democracy, yet no Northern 
President has ever yet received the support of the 
South and West. Hitherto this peculiar, and one- 
sided result, has left no sting — created no heart 



APPENDIX. 181 

burnings, in the bosom of Northern democracy, be- 
cause it was the result, not of sectional bigotry, but 
of facts, and principles. The administrations of the 
two Northern Presidents were alike offensive to 
republicans of all quarters, and were put down by 
the joint voices of a united Democracy. 

But suppose this state of things now to be changed, 
and a democratic candidate to be presented from the 
North ; ought that candidate to be opposed by the 
democracy of the South and West ? Suppose that 
candidate to be one coming as near to the Jeffer- 
sonian standard, (to say more might seem invidious; 
to say that much is enough for the argument,) sup- 
pose such a candidate to be presented ; ought the de- 
mocracy of the South and West to reject him ? — 
Could they do it, without showing a disposition to 
monopolize the Presidential office? and to go on for 
an indefinite succession, after having already possess- 
ed the office for forty years, out of forty-eight ? — 
What would be the effect of such a stand, taken by 
the South and West, on the harmony of the demo- 
cratic party ? Certainly to destroy it! What would 
be its effect on the harmony of the States? Cer- 
tainly to array them against each other ! What 
would be its effect on the formation of parties? Cer- 
tainly to change it from the ground of principle, to 
the ground of territory ! to substitute a geographical 
16 



182 APPENDIX. 

basis, for the political basis, on which parties now rest! 
Could these things be desirable to any friend of pop- 
ular government ? to any considerate and reflecting 
man in the South or West ? On the contrary, should 
not the democracy of the South and West, rejoice at 
an opportunity to show themselves superior to sec- 
tional bigotry, devoted to principle, intent upon the 
general harmony, inaccessible to intrigue, or to 
weakness; and ready to support the cause of de- 
mocracy, whether, the representative of the cause 
comes from this, or that side, of a river, or a moun- 
tain ? — A Southern and a Western man myself, this 
is the State of my own feelings, and I rejoice to see 
that your convention has acted upon them. And if, 
what I have here written, (and which I could not 
have written if I had accepted the most honorable 
and gratifying nomination of your convention,) if this 
letter, too long for the occasion, but too short for my 
feelings ! if it shall contribute to prevent the disrup- 
tion of the republican party, and the consequent loss 
of all the advantages recovered for the constitution 
and the people, under the administration of President 
Jackson, then shall I feel the consolation of having 
done a better service to the republic by refusing to 
take, than I can ever do, by taking office. 

Hoping then, my dear sir, that the nomination of 
your convention may have its full effect in favor of 



APPENDIX. 183 

Mr. Van Buren, and that it may be entirely forgot- 
ten, so far as it regards myself, except in the grateful 
recollections of my own bosom, I remain most truly 
and sincerely, yours, 

THOMAS H. BENTON. 
Maj. Gen. Davis, Manchester, Mississippi. 



Substance of Mr. Van Buren's Speech in 1824, 
in the Senate of the United States, in favor of 
the bill abolishing imprisonment for debt. 

[One of the first measures proposed by Mr. Van Buren as a 
member of the Legislature of New- York, was a bill to abolish im- 
Jftrlsonuient for debt, except in esses of fraud, malicious injury, 
and groos breach of trust. For several years in succession he in- 
troduced and warmly urged bills to this effect, in the State Sen- 
ate, and at length suceeded in obtaining the concurrence of tliat 
body; but as the bill failed in the Assembly, this great improve- 
ment in jurisprudence, was not ultimately adopted in New-York, 
until some years after he had been transferred to the Senate of 
the United States. In that body he also distinguished himself, 
along with Col. Johnson and others, in endeavouring to efface 
this relic of barbarism from our national system. The following 
is a brief outhne of one of his speeches on the subject. The 
sketch is quite imperfect, but will repay an attentive perusal.] 

Mr. Van Buren, said that his preference for the 
bill was founded on an entire conviction, that whilst 
it secured to the creditor means for the collection of 
his debt, of far greater efficacy than those now al- 
lowed by law, it would, in all the cases which are 



tg4 APPE^fDIX. 

subject to its operation, effectually remove that foul 
stain upon our jurisprudence — the power of a cred- 
itor to deprive his debtor of his liberty, on account 
of his inability to pay the debt he ows; — a power 
which confounds the distinction between virtue and 
vice, and which, contrary to the fitness of things, 
awards the same measure of punishment for misfor- 
tune as for fraud, but in its practical operation inflicts 
that punishment upon the unfortunate only, whilst 
the really guilty laugh at its impotent and unavail- 
ing provisions. 

Mr. V. B. would first consider the effect of the 
bill, upon the ability of the creditor to collect his 
debt. On this point it is to be observed that the 
debt can only be paid by property. To reach that,, 
then, is the only object. Beyond that, it is conced- 
ed by all, that imprisonment is not only useless but 
indefensible. 

By the existing law, bail is allowed on mesne pro- 
cess, and jail limits on an execution against the body. 
Those who have the property you are in pursuit of, 
will get bail for both these objects. This we know. 
Now what is the character of such imprisonment and 
what are its effects? In this respect, the state laws 
govern. In their legislatures, the same disposition 
has been manifested, which is every where evinced, 
when the subject is acted upon — that is to say — an 
entire willingness to surrender the substance^ ac- 



APPENDIX. Ig5 

companied by a mysterious adherence to the form. 
The jail limits are in some places parts of the town 
or city where the jail is situated; in others, the 
whole town or city; and in many cases the whole 
county. What can the debtor do who has property 
to pay his debts but is destitute of the inclination and 
the honesty to apply it? He can take a house with- 
in the limits, partake of the domestic comforts of 
his family, and live in such style as his inclinatioa 
suggests and his means allow of. 

On this point other Senators will speak from their 
own observation: according to his experience and 
observation, Mr. Van Buren thought that in the 
great mass of cases, the existing remedy was wholly 
inefficacious, to wrest the property of an unwilling 
debtor from his grasp. Let us now look to the ef- 
fect of the substitute proposed. What is that sub- 
stitute ? — It is the reverse of the present system. It 
makes imprisonment what it should be — a harsh 
means to secure a justifiable end. If the debtor con- 
templates a fraud upon his creditor — if be intends to 
betray the trust reposed in him by withdrawing his 
person from the process necessary to arrive at his 
property, he may, on the oath of the creditor, be 
arrested, and subjected to close custody, unkss he 
gives bail that he will be forthcoming. If at debtor 
has practiced a fraud upon his creditor, .by concealing 
or transferring his property, to evade the payment 
16* 



|gg APPENDIX. 

of his debts, or even by so investing it as to exempt 
it from execution, the creditor, on an aflidavit of his 
suspicion only, may arrest him ; may subject the 
fact to judicial examination, and hold him to bail for 
his appearance, to abide the result of such examina- 
tion. He may, by the amendment of the gentleman 
from Delaware, examine the debtor on oath, and 
confront him with his trustees and confederates, and 
if the fact is found against him, by a jury of his 
country, his condition is changed, and from the 
mere delinquency of a debtor, his situation becomes 
assimilated, in a great degree, to that of the feJon. — 
And the treatment he thereafter receives, is as it 
ought to be, of a similar character. 

Instead of residing in the bosom of his family, riot- 
ing on the fruits of his fraud, whilst his more honest 
creditor and his family are deprived of their bread 
by their misplaced confidence, he will be stripped of 
these indulgences ; he will be torn from the parental 
board which he contaminates, and from a society 
which he corrupts, and placed where he ought to be, 
in the walls of a prison, under the restraints of grates 
and bars. The character of fair dealing between 
man and man, is promoted, when the guilty are pu- 
nished. Mr. V. B. appealed to every man of reflec- 
tion to tell him whether he was not satisfied that 
means like these will go further to secure the real 



APPENDIX. 187 

interests of the creditor, than the pitiful and intricate 
machinery of the present system ? 

In addition to this is the right given by the pro- 
posed bill to imprison, on evidence of the conceal- 
ment of the fraudulent debtor. This feature is desi- 
rable — not only because it secures the punishment 
of the guilty, but because it markes the distinc- 
tion between fraud and misfortune, the great point 
which has always been desired by the friends of 
humanity. It is not the privations of the fraudu- 
lent, which have so constantly excited the disciples 
of philanthropy. It never has been any where dis- 
puted, that the fraudulent debtor deserved all, and 
more than all, the stipulated rigor of the present law. 
But it has been because what ht deserved, had been 
heaped upon the head of the innocent and the un- 
fortunate, that so much sympathy had been excited. 
That distinction, if the bill passes, will be made, so 
far as the courts of the United States are concerned. 
Those high grades of fraud which add to the breach 
of moral obligation ; the violation of public trust, 
(being the cases of public officers embezzling public 
monies,) those of a second grade, which consists in 
the violation of trusts reposed by those who have 
gone to their long account, and which are practised 
to the injury of the widow and orphan, (the case of 
embezzlement by executors, administrators, and guar- 
dians) and the simple frauds practiced by man upon 



I §8 APPENDIX. 

his fellow man, when dealing at arms length, all 
when duly ascertained and proved will be punished 
by the provisions of this bill as they deserve. In 
such imprisonment all will acquiesce ; by it the 
claims of justice will be satisfied, and no moral feel- 
ing violated. On a man imprisoned for such cause, 
the community would look with feelings of indiffer- 
ence. They might pity the depravity, and despise 
the meanness of spirit, which had brought him to that 
condition; but real sympathy would, in such cases, be 
strangers to their bosoms. But imprisonment of the 
unfortunate debtor, whether it consists of many or 
a few, ought every where to be regarded as an 
outrage upon the moral sense of a civilized and chris- 
tian community. Such are the provisions of the 
bill on the table ; and such the additional remedies 
given to the creditor. 

Now what are the rights of the creditor surren- 
dered?— they consist — 

1st. In the privilege of arbitrary arrest or inesnt 
process. 

2d. In arbitrary imprisonment on execution. 

As to \k\^ first. By the law as it will stand if the 
hill passes, the creditor, on his own affidavit, of the 
existence of the debt, and apprehension of departure, 
may arrest. By the law, as it now stands, in most of 
the states, the creditor may, without proof of the 
jdebt, hold the person whom he chooses to consider 



APPENDIX. 1S9 

his debtor, to bail, in any amount he pleases, and 
imprison him at least for a season, unless he obtains 
bail. Is this right ? Contrast it with proceedings 
for crime. No man can be arrested for any crime, 
not even for the lowest, without previous affidavit of 
crime committed, and suspicion, at least, as to the 
author, and after arrest, he cannot be committed 
without previous and full examination of the circum- 
stances upon which that suspicion rests. But in a 
civil case, a man may be arrested and committed for 
trial, at the will and pleasure of his fellow citizens 
Is there not a repugnance in these provisions as re- 
volting to our feeling, as it is destructive of sound 
policy ? Will any man believe, that if any legisla- 
ture of any country were to sit down to form a sys- 
tem combining both subjects, one involving such 
discrepancy would be adopted ? They surely would 
not. Mr. V. B. put the question to honorable Sena- 
tors, if the whole matter was before you, and you 
were now, for the first time, to act upon it, would 
you do so? Every honorable member will at once 
answer that he would not, and still we are content to 
acquiesce in what is, because it has been, and to con- 
tinue the toleration of abuses plain and manifest as 
the meridian sun, rather than give ourselves the trou- 
ble to break the fetters by which sturdy habit has 
bound us. 

As to the second. The right of arbitrary impri- 



190 APPENDIX. 

sonment on the execution, without fraud or conceal- 
ment proved. Upon whom does it fall? Mr. V. B. 
had already shown that those who have property will 
get bail. It is therefore the poor and friendless only 
who feel its rigor. Its inhumanity and its injustice 
as it bears upon them, are too manifest to need eluci- 
dation. All acquiesce, or, at least, seem to do so, in 
this view of the case. In a word, it is punishment 
without guilt, which no man will approve. It is 
punishment without expiation — punishment at which 
the best feelings of our nature revolt. In criminal 
cases, by the lapse of time, the measure of personal 
suiTering becomes full, and the claims of public jus- 
tice are satisfied. Not so with the imprisoned debtor. 
The sun rises and the sun sets ; but his condition re- 
mains the same, and if death sets his spirit free, the 
creditor not only succeeds to his deod body, but to 
whatever estate accident may have devolved upon 
him. Imprisonment is not only of such character 
and consequence to the unfortunate debtor himself, 
but its injurious consequences, without benefitting the 
creditor, embrace the still more innocent family of 
the debtor, by depriving them of all means of sup- 
port. — More and worse than this — operate as a pub- 
lic injury, by preparing its subject for the commis- 
sion of crime, by destroying his pride of character, 
and by corrupting his principles; so that when he is 
, again let loose upon society, by the humanity of the 



APPENDIX. J9j^ 

« 

insolvent laws, or the relenting disposition of the 
creditor, he comes forth a confirmed misanthropist, 
if not a ready depredator on the property of others. 
Viewed therefore in whatever light it may be, the 
imprisonment of the unfortunate debtor is a matter 
of unmixed mischief, which ought no where to be 
tolerated, which is no where justified in terms, 
though it is supported in substance. 

Mr. Van Buren said he would now consider the 
character and effect of the imprisonment now allow- 
ed. What are its advantages? — It is justified as a 
means to compel the debtor to disgorge concealed 
property. Mr. V. B. had already shown that as to 
him who has property to disgorge, and can therefore 
secure the privilege of the limits, the measure is 
wholly inoperative. 

Upon those who have no property, it is not only 
wholly ineffectual, but very oppressive. It is pun- 
ishing first and enquiring afterwards. It is inflict- 
ing severe chastisement for a supposed injury to an 
individual, constituting the injured party both judge 
and jury. It partakes of the character of the rack, 
putting its victim to the torture, without knowing 
whether he has any thing to confess or not. It is 
said that to repeal the old law, would deprive the 
creditor of one of his securities. As the bill now 
stands, with its operation confined to contracts which 



192 APPENDIX. 

are made after the fourth of July next, it cannot be 
said to deprive the creditor of any security which 
he possessed, at the time of entering into the con- 
tract. It can therefore only be objectionable, if ob- 
jectionable at all, because it will prevent the taking 
of future securities of that character. Mr. V. B. 
said, that with him the greatest merit of the bill was 
that it produces that effect. Mr. V. B. agreed fully 
with a distinguished writer, who says, that he who 
trusts, with a design to sue, is criminal by the act. 
What is it? — Strip the transaction of the drapery of 
courts, officers, and forms of proceeding, which are 
but the instruments of the law, to give effect to the 
contract as made between the parties, and suppose 
the contract to express all that by the law, as it stands, 
it implies. It would then provide that if the debtor 
failed on the appointed day to pay the debt he had 
contracted, it should be lawful for the creditor to tear 
him from his family, and to restrain him of his liber- 
ty, by confining him within prison walls, whether 
his inability to pay arose from misfortune or fault, and 
whilst so confined to leave him to be sustained by his 
own resources, or if he had none by the charity of his 
fellow-citizens, until he should be discharged by 
their humanity, or the humanity of the laws of his 
country. Suppose a contract thus actually written 
Qut — what would a christian community say to such 



APPENDIX. 193 

a bargain ? In what portion of this country would 
the man who had dared to enter into it, venture io 
expose his person to the hisses of his fellow-citizens? 
And still this is but the unvarnished statement of a 
transaction which, when disguised by the interven- 
tion of courts, and consecrated by immemorial usage, 
receives the vigorous support of some of the best and 
wisest men that our country produces. Sir, said 
Mr. V. B. I am for breaking up contracts of this 
character. I would dissolve this alliance which is 
supj)osed to exist between the counting house and the 
jail. I would com])el men to conduct their dealings 
on higher and better principles, and to look to better 
grounds of reliance, than to bailiffs and turnkeys. — - 
I would have them depend upon the character or 
property of those with whom they deal ; and rest as- 
sured the best results would flow from the establish- 
ment of such a system. It cannot be necessary to 
state, thrit in all dealings upon credit, the terms of the 
contract vvill be greatly controlled by the nature of 
the security. What must be the terms of those bar- 
gains which njainly depend upon a security of this 
description ? Can they be otherwise than the opera- 
tions of griping avarice upon helpless poverty, or of 
cupidity and cunning upon improvident and danger- 
ous speculation!^ ? They must, in the nature of 
things, be of thife character. If this system be abo- 
17 



194 



APPENDIX. 



lighed, those who desire credit will pursue a diffe- 
rent course to obtain it. They will seek to inspire 
confidence by industry, probity, and punctuality. — 
By this course they will be sure to obtain it, and the 
credit they thus obtain will elevate their character, 
increase their happiness, and benefit the community. 

It is further objected that the alteration of the sys- 
tem will impair credit. Mr. V. B. had already 
stated what species of credit it must necessarily be, 
which would be thus impaired, and how little objec- 
tion exists against putting a check upon such credit. 
But what reason is there to believe that this appre- 
hended effect upon credit, would be produced. In 
this, as in all other cases, speculation must yield to 
fact, or you are led into error. 

The suggestions of experience must be listened to. 
How stands the fact ? What is the condition of the 
credit most prevalent in the country ; that on which 
nine-tenths of the every day business of the country 
rests ? It is bank paper. And what security does 
the holder of a bank note ask or receive, when he 
takes it ? The right to imprison the drawer ? No ! 
he never thinks of it.- He will sell his estate, and 
take in payment the notes of associated individuals, 
without its ever occurring to him, that the right to 
imprison the drawer, is not secured to him; but if he 
sells a horse, or a cow, and takes the note of a single 



APPENDIX. 195 

individual, he deems it a matter of vital importance, 
that his lien upon the body of debtors should be pro- 
tected by the strongest statutes. When you pay an 
annual premium to secure your houses against the 
flames, or your vessels against winds and waves, do 
you think of the right to imprison ? No. But when 
we dole out a miserable pittance of their cargo, this 
hankering after corporeal security posseses us. Such 
are the miserable contradictions into which we are 
led by the blind force of habit. But suppose a 
check is put to credit. Is it certain that such a re- 
sult would be an evil? Mr. V. B. thought not. — 
He thought, on the contrary, that much of the dis- 
tress which has prevailed, and in some places conti- 
nues to prevail, arose from the unrestrained credit 
which has been given in this country. It has led to 
extravagancies in every form. In the manner of 
living, in buildings, in equipages, in dress and orna- 
ments, in every thing, you have seen its pernicious 
influence. The frugal habits of our ancestors who 
dealt in the property they actually had, have given 
way to the prodigality of those who deal in the ideal 
capital which credit has given them, and the conse- 
quence has been that we have lost that independence 
our ancestors possessed. Without enlarging upon the 
subject, Mr. V. B. was satisfied, that a check to cre- 
dit, so far from being objectionable, was desirable. 



196 APPENDIX. 

We have seen that we cannot check the improvi- 
dence of the debtor ; let us therefore endeavor to re- 
strain the cupidit)^ of the creditor. In every point 
of view, tiierefore, in which he had been able to 
consider the subject, Mr. V. B. was decidedly in fa- 
vor of the bill; and he trusted it would receive the 
approbation of Congress, and of the country. 



A CARD. 

Democratic friends in all parts of the 
Union disposed to circulate this work, are 
informed, that all orders directed to the pub- 
lisher for copies either in sheets or bound, 
(postpaid^) will be promptly attended to. 

WM. EMMONS. 
Washing I on^ Feb. I S3 5. 



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